My boyfriend and I live in a nice apartment building in Alberta - he’s the resident manager, 95 suites in a high rise downtown. It’s nearly impossible to legally evict someone over pot smell complaints…unless there are other evictable offenses to go along with it, the judge will pretty much laugh it out of court if the tenant decides to challenge the order. It’s happened before.
Thankfully, most people just leave if given an eviction.
And the cops? I have a policeman friend (now on the tactical squad) who says that pot smokers are the “least of the cops’ problems”. They probably wouldn’t even show up unless there were also noise or fighting complaints.
The landlord might be helpless in this situation, too.
I do not find it credible that anyone is going to fail a drug test just from being able to smell pot in a hallway.
The cops are unlikely even to show up at all because “I smell pot from my neighbor’s apartment,” and even if they do, they can’t arrest them unless they actually see something, and even if they arrest them, it’s just a misdemeanor. It’s a parking ticket. It’s not going to solve anything or stop them from smoking pot. All it’s going to do is make them more hostile.
“Clouds of smoke” is hyperbole, and no it wouldn’t change my mind. I have lived in buildings in the past where it was someimes pssible to smell pot from other apartments. My kids did not become stoned by walking past those doors.
You can’t always assume the cops will do nothing. In Louisiana, for instance, a second offense for possession for any amount is a freaking felony. Sure, in a lot of places the cops aren’t interested, but don’t count on it.
Stoners not only forget to hide the bong sometimes, occasionally they can be found dancing around naked and playing the bongos when the cops show up.
Another vote for yes, it does stink your clothes up, even if you don’t notice. We share a ventilation system with the neighbors who blaze up 4 or 5 times a week, leaving our bedroom and bathroom reeking. An ex of mine used to smoke, and it permeated his clothes long after he stopped, and the stench stayed through wash cycles. Besides the fact that the OP’s neighbors are clearly dicks.
For the person upthread who said you have to be right by a person’s door to smell the pot smoke - not true.
My apartment is on the second floor, right at the top of the stairs, with one other apartment at the other end of the hallway. Same configuration above me.
At the bottom of the stairs and right before the exit is one apartment door.
Right now, there is a pot smoker or smokers in my buidling and I can smell that as soon as I step outside my apartment or enter the building. The smell is fairly heavy also but since I can smell it right outside my apartment and going up and down the stairs, it can’t be because I’m right in front of the responsible tenant’s door.
First cite I could find regarding second hand marijuana smoke and drug screening.
In summary, it is detectable if the screen is a blood test. A urine test is unlikely to product a positive result from second hand smoke, but it is possible depending on the test sensitivity and exposure to smoke.
A few years ago my work occupied the top floor of a building and the bottom was rented out by a 20-something pothead (and by that, I mean his dad) who usually didn’t go the building until after work hours. Until he did actually come in around noon. That was a fun day, building reeked and we were interviewing for a job.
Dude did not get his lease renewed by the landlord.
If the state the OP lives in allows medical marijuana and the neighbors have a card there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it aside from complaining to the landlord that it’s a nuisance. No cops will come to break down the door and even if the person in question is sitting right out in the open huffing a bong that’s completely their right. They are in their own house, using medication for which they have a legal prescription. Deal.
Or you can suggest they invest in a vaporizer, which gives off no smell or smoke at all. Best all-round solution for an apartment building.
You’re kidding, right? In court people appear every day whose clothes reek of pot. And it wasn’t like they were just busted. They were there for a scheduled hearing.
Just feed into their pot-induced paranoia. The next time you see one of the guilty people, just sidle up to them and say, “Dude, did you hear that there’s a narc living in the building?”
It may not be illegal under state law, if the people in question have medical-use licenses. Granted it’s still a Federal violation in any case, but I doubt that the FBI or DEA or whoever will be all that anxious to step in, unless there’s some heavy duty dealing or cultivation going on.
Is the landlord likely to care? I don’t know if things are different in America, but here any landlord who’d rent to someone who smokes enough weed to actually smell out a building isn’t likely to care about a complaint. Neither are the police, but I’m well aware that’s not the case in some states.
Don’t you have a Crimestopper’s where you live? You could always organize a couple of different people from the building to contact them (you can do it on line and anonymously), with pretty much the same tale; Some scary, heavy pot smoking criminals have moved in, the place constantly reeks, they are aggressive when approached by neighbours, now everyone is frightened, yada, yada. Don’t do it all at once, do it, over a week or so. Then, call in a noise complaint when you know they’re smoking! I predict cops will come, people will be arrested/or not, behaviour will change.
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic;13148953It would be a false complaint, a crime in itself.[/QUOTE]
:rolleyes: Screw that and screw them. “But officer, I saw 2 guys walk out of their apartment with 2 giant bags of weed.” If I was the OP, I’d call the cops every day until they did something about it. I might even drop in a couple of bags of boogie in their mailbox.
I personally think that marijuana should be legal, and is far less dangerous than many legal drugs. But that’s irrelevant here. My problem is the lack of respect for their neighbors. We’re living in a society and non-smokers have rights too!
