I live in a house that was converted into apartments, with 4 on each floor. Someone on the floor downstairs is smoking so much pot that it makes the hallways smell, sometimes creeps into my apartment, and leaves me smelling like pot sometimes when I’m leaving my place. What do I do? Call the cops about it? Tell the landlord? It’s getting annoying when people tell me I reek of pot.
You probably didn’t want this in the Pit, since you’re seeking advice. I’ll report it for a forum move for you.
I think if you’d hit this thing a couple of times you wouldn’t be so uptight…
- Find out which apartment
- Talk to them politely, point out that it goes through vents and might be noticed by many people
2b) Leave passive-aggressive note on door if unwilling to to 2. - Tell landlord if it continues to be a problem
- They’re not going to stop smoking for you, but hopefully they won’t do it inside
It’s technically illegal, but I think the cops will be unenthusiastic if you tell them. Let your landlord handle any legal issues.
Well, if it were me (and I am not you) I’d drop them an anonymous note telling them that if you don’t stop smelling like a Rusted Root concert then you’ll call the cops, and then if it doesn’t improve call them. But I wouldn’t think you were a bad person for going right to the cops. Enough pot smoking to affect your neighbors’ lives is enough to bypass my normal “pot is not a thing to call the cops about” instinct. If your friends can smell it, that’s ridiculous.
Go talk to them and ask them to smoke outside instead?
The hardest part is that it could be any of 4 apartments and the whole hallway will smell so much that there is no way to tell.
Would the smell give police probable cause to enter? This is a smaller college town and the cops don’t have much to do other than bust people drunk in public.
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m a live and let live sort of guy, and while my first inclination would be ‘ask why they haven’t invited you to join in the fun’, too much of a good thing can be bad as well. Personally, I’d go have a little chat with them, friendly like, and tell them that they need to cut back a bit since it’s seriously effecting you. Living in an apartment complex means you have to curtail some things in order to get along with all your neighbors, and one of those things is smoking anything to excess.
If they don’t receive your friendly overtures well (and admittedly, they may not), then simply call the police or contact the landlord the next time it becomes an issue.
-XT
Then put a flyer on the wall where they’ll all see it.
Well I went downstairs, 2 places there was no answer, one said that it wasn’t them and it bothers them too, and the last one they opened the door even though a guy was in full view taking a hit off a bong. I told them how it’s annoying many of us living here and he just told me to fuck off.
Well, that pretty much answers your question, doesn’t it? You tried to be nice, they told you to fuck off. Time to call either landlord, the cops, or both.
Or post something to all addresses stating that you do not know which apartment is doing it and that this has been posted to all apartments.
“Ok, I tried to be nice about it…”
Look, I smoked pot for 25 years. I haven’t smoked in over 7 years now. I favor legalization. But even I wouldn’t let this lie.
You went to the guy, you ID’d them as the cause, they told you to fuck off. Next step is the landlord. If that produces no results, the next step is the Police.
The downside is potential retaliation. Hell, I spent a year living through petty retaliation over the goddamned neighbor kid running up and down the halls from 10:30pm to 1am just about every night before they were finally evicted.
And as above, don’t expect much out of the cops, depending on where you live. Frankly, I appreciate that. People shouldn’t be busted for smoking pot, in my mind. But this isn’t about smoking pot, it is about being a bad neighbor. And therefore I view this much the same as my own noise complaints, not as being a “narc”.
This, I do not believe. I think you’re bullshitting. I have had a pretty fair exposure, over the years, soaking myself and my clothes, permeating, marinating. No one has ever, ever said that I smell like pot. Taking my exposure as a benchmark, I’m trying to imagine smoke wafting from another apartment with such intensity as to render your clothes redolent, so redolent that other people will notice. Can’t happen. Its herb, it ain’t mustard gas.
Balderdash, sir! Tommyrot!
Oh boy.
Pester the police until they do do something?
Is there a landlord?
A local government agency you can moan to if the landlord does nothing?
Awkward as - and WAG here - in the US the tenant doesn’t have many of the safeguards that I have become accustomed to.
I guess you could just try and out-obnoxious him?
I second that notion. Marijuana smoke just doesn’t linger that strongly. I doubt it would stick to the neighbors clothes even if the Kottonmouth Kings lived next door. 
According to South Park, you should now take a shit on their porch every morning.
But yeah, you did the right thing, now it’s landlord and/or cops. Hopefully they get fucked.
My parents smoke pot all the time. I can smell it on their clothes and in their home, especially in their bedroom where they smoke it. It stinks at the same intensity as cigarette smoke and lingers just as long. If you’re a pot smoker and people have never said anything about the smell, it’s probably because you’re hanging out with other pot smokers or people just decide not to say anything about it (just like people don’t say anything to stinky cigarette smokers).
They’re doing something illegal. When you witness someone doing something illegal, you call the cops. It really is that simple.
Now, I don’t think that smoking pot should be illegal, but it is, so call the cops.
And now they know who to blame if the cops show up.
No win situation. Move.