Joint cooperation needed with weed-smoking neighbours to keep tenancy from going to pot

Q: I have lived in an apartment building for years. Recently a couple moved into the apartment next to mine, and they smoke marijuana a lot. Several times a week the smell comes into my apartment and makes me feel ill. I asked them to stop smoking, but they told me to “chillax,” whatever that means. I then complained to my landlord, but the property manager has told me that there is nothing he can do. Does the landlord need to do something for me? I don’t want to move, but I find this situation intolerable.

A: There are steps your landlord can take, and if need be, you can probably make the landlord take them. It is true that the couple’s apartment is their home, but your apartment is your home, and the nature of living in a multi-unit building is that tenants need to be respectful of one another’s rights and needs.

Under Ontario’s Residential Tenancies Act, a tenancy can be terminated if a tenant substantially interferes with the reasonable enjoyment of another tenant (or the landlord). Generally, in most buildings, a tenant is expected to put up with occasional exposure to second-hand smoke, but is not expected to put up with a lot of second-hand smoke. In the circumstances you describe, the landlord can ask the couple to limit their smoking (of marijuana or tobacco) so that the smoke does not enter your apartment.

That may mean smoking outside, smoking on the side of their apartment away from yours, opening a window to draw out the smoke or even using a fan to push the smoke out of a window away from your unit. The landlord should fill any obvious holes in the walls between your apartment and the couple’s apartment to minimize the entry of smoke.

Once any holes are sealed, if the couple’s efforts to avoid emitting significant smoke fail more than a few times a year (and the smoke continues to bother you), then the landlord can give them a notice of termination for interfering with your reasonable enjoyment. This is similar to the situation regarding tobacco smoke.

If the couple continue to spew out smoke within seven days of receiving the notice of termination, then your landlord can take them to the Landlord and Tenant Board to seek to evict them.

At the Board’s hearing you would need to testify about the smoke that has been disturbing you, and how much it negatively affects you. Your evidence about the extent of the disturbance and the frequency of it will be crucial. Additional evidence could come from the superintendent, a friend of yours, or a repair person who has smelled the smoke in your apartment.

Once they are alerted to the fact that the smoking bothers another tenant that much, and realize that the landlord can take steps, many smokers reduce and manage their smoking so that it really is only an occasional, minor annoyance. Other smokers may find a new place where they can smoke without all the limits.

If your landlord refuses to take the steps outlined above, then you can claim against them for violating your reasonable enjoyment of your apartment by not taking the actions available to address the problem.