I was woken up at the crack of dawn this morning when I smelled smoke. SMOKE! In my bedroom! I started checking out my room, the Hordling’s room, and moving around my abode to pinpoint the source of the fire, when I glanced out my kitchen window and saw a cloud of smoke billowing from a neighbour’s backyard shed.
I grabbed shoes and a jacket and raced up the street, trying to pinpoint exactly who’s backyard this was coming from so I could call the fire department. Third time was the charm, as I ran into a backyard and found the source of the smoke.
.
.
.
.
.
.
It was two guys, starting up their BBQ with great ineptness. They had flames 3 feet high coming off this thing, and chunks of fucking lumber on the grill as they squirted lighter fluid around with abandon.
OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE! Who the fuck starts BBQing before 6 a.m. on a goddamn Saturday? It wasn’t like these guys were drunk and had stayed up all night. They had a spit ready to go, and that spit kept turning all the goddamn day.
And the smoke! Ye flipping gods! Here I was thinking some anti-semite was lobbing molotov cocktails around the neighbourhood, and it’s just a couple of tools doing worse than my 2-million-year-old ancestors.
Every time I check out The Straightdope there is at least one thread that makes me say to myself,“I’m so freakin’ glad I live out in the sticks, miles away from the nearest neighbor”. Today, yours was that thread.
Maybe you should have gone over there later and mooched some burnt meat?
Directly below the bedroom window that wouldn’t close, my downstairs neighbors used to light up the hibachi using approximately 37 bottles of lighter fluid. The smell was strong enough to give me headaches. They only did this about once a month, but it was still one of (many) reasons I moved.
That’s nothin’. When I smell smoke outside, it’s my neighbor lighting his tiki torches for a backyard party. Then there’s a pit-like thing that they have a fire going in. . .sort of like a campfire. No usefulness. . . just fire. . . right next to my wooden fence.
ETA: But you definitely got the title right, in my opinion.
While this is clearly insane ( and nasty sounding, I loathe lighter fluid on BBQs )…
This is not…
I’ve participated in smoking a whole ( young ) pig before and it started at ten p.m. and ran until maybe noon the following day ( roughly - I am approximating the hours and I might add that relevant neighbors were carefully informed ahead of time and measure taken to not get in anybody’s way or make much noise ). Whole briskets also take an ungodly amount of time to water smoke. However the results are mouthwateringly delicious.
So I’m with you on the obvious ineptness on display and the fact that that caused a disturbance to you, but not the time criticism :).
Considering the way it sounds like they were preparing it, I’m guessing it woulda been some seriously nasty shit. I might consider an offer of BBQ off a fire like that a personal threat…
I’ve been known to deliberately set off a BBQ fireball, but I make a point of not including my neighbors in my pyromania, and I make a point of using the correct quantity and type of fuel.
Isn’t most lumber treated with chemicals? That and the copious amounts of lighter fluid I would have declined a helping of the BBQ if offered. Thank you but no, I’m trying to cut back on carcinogens.
oh, thank god you went back to sleep. Otherwise the neighbors would have beat the shit out of you for your stupidity, and “we” would have mnever have read your pithy cooments.
To get back to the OP, your neighbors do seem inconsiderate, but you know some people really like their bbq fires blazing. That doesn’t excuse them, but it could explain why they were grilling so incompetently.
Also, I’m a bit curious what kind of neighborhood you live in that your first worry of smoke is that anti-semites are tossing around molotov cocktails, or was that just some good old-fashioned hyperbole?
If I’m going to smoke a brisket or boston butt I generally start the smoker around 5 AM. Granted, my smoker isn’t anyhwere near someone else’s window, but I wonder if it might bother my neighbors at all. You might try asking your neighbor if they’d be willing to move the grill to another location. I can’t do that with my smoker simply because of the way the property set up but maybe they can.
If I smell smoke around here it’s because the neighbour’s lighting up his cigarette. I’d rather he barbecue. Or smoke out front instead where I can’t smell it.
I feel your pain. I live in an apartment building in a fairly dense city. Yesterday morning, 7am, fire alarm starts going off. We get up, put clothes on, cram the cat into his crate and skootle out the building. At seven in the motherfucking morning on a motherfucking Saturday. Turns out some idiot was barbecuing in his apartment. We are not amused.