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I am trying to have a peaceful weekend home, catching up on laundry. But instead, I am suffering from a sinus headache because one of our neighbors burning some type of wood. The smoke smell is entering my house, despite that I have checked to make sure all the windows and doors are sealed tight.
A few years ago we had an energy audit and the house checked to make sure it was sealed. I have 2 1/2 acres, so not exactly on top of my neighbors.
I have allergies, asthma and lots of sinus issues. The wood smoke is not helping the situation. We heat the house by electric and a propane gas stove insert in our fireplace. Which are both very clean.
I know I can’t make them stop burning their stoves but I am going to hope that they will stop burning wood so I can stop suffering.
I would love that! I actually burn incense to replicate the scent in winter and long for the day I can burn wood in my OWN house. Different strokes!
Free fire wood... LOL. If you don't want to consider the time to cut and stack it's certainly the least expensive way to heat but there isn't anything free about it.
I had customer that burned wood for 25 years, after the first season with coal "I wish I knew this 25 years ago". This guy is hilarious.
Where I live, a lot of people use fireplaces and wood stoves. I love in the Fall when I start to smell wood smoke in the crisp air. I never smell it inside of my home, however.
There is a house just behind my neighbor across the street who I wonder whether they heat exclusively with wood as they always see to have a lot of smoke. The other night I went out to get the mail and it was billowing, clouds of it, crossing the street and to my house. It was so bad, I was worried that something was on fire. But even with all that, I couldn't smell it at all in my house. I could smell it on the ends of my hair though after being outside, that's how heavy it was.
there is a skill set to heating with wood. People who have a woodstove and burn trash wood and garbage don't have it and the smoke can be truly dreadful. I heated with wood for many years but I put a gas stove in my new house because I knew I couldn't manage the wood stove anymore, but I still know something about the process... and I know at least two of my neighbors are doing it wrong. The smoke is really toxic.
The leaves? I have to listen to the leaf blower and smell the leaf smoke for hours at a time. They also burn garbage and wood from their property that sometimes smolders for days. I make compost. I like quiet. They have taken away a lot of what I enjoyed about my home.
I can understand why the OP is so angry. The ugliness of city life is spreading.
Did you ever visit the "old lady" or check on her ... maybe take her some cookies or cake?
Well, you beat me to it. I don't think that the OP misses the old lady - because they only saw her once in a blue moon (her words) and she was never intrusive. The OP misses having her as a neighbor perhaps but it doesn't sound like she actually misses THE OLD LADY HERSELF.
Free fire wood... LOL. If you don't want to consider the time to cut and stack it's certainly the least expensive way to heat but there isn't anything free about it.
I had customer that burned wood for 25 years, after the first season with coal "I wish I knew this 25 years ago". This guy is hilarious.
I'm up camping or hunting all the time. The local FS cuts down the dead oak and pine and slices into rounds and stack it next to the road. On the way back from a trip I load my F350 as heavy as I can make it. We have a gas splitter in the backyard. That thing has paid for itself times over.
But ya, there can be a good workout getting that stuff into stove size Worth it.
there is a skill set to heating with wood. People who have a woodstove and burn trash wood and garbage don't have it and the smoke can be truly dreadful. I heated with wood for many years but I put a gas stove in my new house because I knew I couldn't manage the wood stove anymore, but I still know something about the process... and I know at least two of my neighbors are doing it wrong. The smoke is really toxic.
The leaves? I have to listen to the leaf blower and smell the leaf smoke for hours at a time. They also burn garbage and wood from their property that sometimes smolders for days. I make compost. I like quiet. They have taken away a lot of what I enjoyed about my home.
I can understand why the OP is so angry. The ugliness of city life is spreading.
The OP doesn't state that there's anything toxic or inappropriate being burned - it's simply the smoke from a wood burning fireplace that she says is bothering her. She was sick enough with an upper respiratory something or other before the neighbors moved in and started using their fireplace, to already be on antibiotics before they even moved in.
Sounds to me like the OP needs an air purifier inside and better quality air filters. She's got a sensitivity to smoke apparently so she needs to figure out how to handle that. Herself, in her own house.
They are on two acre lots.
My gosh, if I bought a house and then someone told me I couldn't use a feature that I had bought, I would be aghast. Especially something like a fire place.
This reminds me of living in military housing. I had a neighbor below me who was from Korea, and she made kimchi often. WOW, IT STUNK. But hey, I wasn't about to tell her she couldn't make a particular dish in her own kitchen, so I just put up with it for months.
Then I had a friend come over who smoked. She sat by the window in the dining room and blew her smoke, from one cigarette, out the window. In a few minutes, this Korean neighbor, whose kimchi smells I'd been tolerating for months, came upstairs and told me "Your friend's cigarette smoke - I don't like smelling it." (This was 35 years ago by the way - when people were still smoking in restaurants and airplanes!) I just looked at her like she was crazy and said, "Sorry about that," and closed the door. And my friend had another cigarette.
Last edited by KathrynAragon; 01-08-2020 at 08:43 AM..
Oh, boo-hoo for you, OP -- and for anyone who doesn't like what their neighbors do IF it is not against the law or HOA regulations. Even though I do empathize with you to some degree (although I enjoy open fires), I think you are very wrong in your attitude.
There is a list of things that I don't like either,, and cigarette smoke tops the list, followed by loud music, followed by any kind of loud noise after 10:00 on weeknights and after 1:00 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. However, when I lived for a couple of years in a resort area that had NO noise regulations and there were a great many loud weekend parties lasting well after midnight, I did not expect my neighbors to turn down the noise because I couldn't sleep -- and not being able to sleep could have been considered a health problem, too!* Also, my husband and I are retiring to an area that allows hunting (and we don't hunt or even own any guns), and we know that we are going to occasionally be subjected to the sound of rifle fire even before we are out of bed in the morning (at least according to one person we have spoken with who lives in the area), but we are certainly not going to write angry letters to the mayor or the newspaper about that!
Not everyone is going to live their lives how you see fit, and if you can't handle that, then it is (or was) up to YOU to check to see what the regulations in your area are ahead of time and then deal with it yourself in any legal way.
*P.S. On Edit: And that -- along with the fact that people do have the right to smoke outside their own homes --is why we would never buy a condo!
Last edited by katharsis; 01-08-2020 at 09:15 AM..
there is a skill set to heating with wood. People who have a woodstove and burn trash wood and garbage don't have it and the smoke can be truly dreadful. I heated with wood for many years but I put a gas stove in my new house because I knew I couldn't manage the wood stove anymore, but I still know something about the process... and I know at least two of my neighbors are doing it wrong. The smoke is really toxic.
The leaves? I have to listen to the leaf blower and smell the leaf smoke for hours at a time. They also burn garbage and wood from their property that sometimes smolders for days. I make compost. I like quiet. They have taken away a lot of what I enjoyed about my home.
I can understand why the OP is so angry. The ugliness of city life is spreading.
What does this have to do with the OP, who hasn't made a detailed analysis of the type of wood her neighbor burns nor has mentioned leaves or leaf blowers???
eta: do people really even know what 'toxic' means anymore!?
You know, someone with two bad knees probably wouldn't buy a two story house with the utilities in the basement. Someone with a progressive muscular disorder would probably buy a house that could be converted to wheelchair use.
If you're so sensitive to things like wood smoke, why in blazes did you buy a house in a semi-rural area in the North? Is it really a big surprise to you that people in such an area use wood burning stoves for heat?
News flash - People in Florida use air conditioning - don't move there if the sound of AC units upsets you!
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