response 26 of 119:

Jan 24 05:51 UTC 2007

It occurs to me that you might try overpressuring your apartment, so air
cannot leak into it from areas with smoke. You could do this with a small fan
in a duct set in a window that opens to an area of "clean" air. That would
also partly solve the overheating you experience (in winter).

I forget - is your unit heated by a common forced-air system? If so, my idea
would not keep out fumes picked up from return air vents in other apartments.

response 28 of 119:

Jan 24 18:35 UTC 2007

but if she has a breakdown, she might *have* to move. 

response 30 of 119:

Jan 24 20:05 UTC 2007

The fan in the window was overpressuring the interior, not circulating air.
It was bringing outside air in.  

Jim tells me after a day's work yesterday he smelled smoke again in the
evening.  

Today I phoned the landlord who is 'pretty certain' the neighbor will be out
by May 1.  He says she spent two days in the hospital with high blood pressure.
(Her third time in the hospital in a year, the other two supposedly for drug
interactions).  And has not smoked since Thursday.  And has only smoked when
I am not there.  And only smoked 1/2 a cigarette.  And would not smoke in the
apartment (she told him probably Friday, he did not recall).  And would give
me her sleeping schedule so I could be quiet then.

I pointed out that if there were still smoke in the apartment we would have
to continue working on the problem, and close doors firmly and maybe with an
automatic door closer.  THe landlord left us one (I forgot to ask where). 
The one to the upstairs apt makes a great deal of noise whenever she goes
through the door.  And maybe use a bucket instead of the bathroom if it came
to sealing off the basement door with rope caulk like we did the front hall.
The landlord grew up without plumbing so we talked of that for a while. The
ground is too frozen to dig a privy right now.  

If the neighbor in #3 moves, the upstairs neighbor, he thinks, would be
willing to move to that efficiency apt with nobody upstairs or downstairs and
a separate air supply.  She could ask people not to let door closers slam from
7 am to 7 pm.  

Jim will continue working on the weatherstripping and he promised not to
'hammer' this afternoon.  He will be using a staple gun.  

There are no rules against talking loudly in your own apartment.  I can hear
and understand upstairs phone conversations (this end) sometimes.  Jim and
I have been talking in the kitchen not the living room until now.  He listens
to talk shows.  He said if you were not supposed to make noises that you can
hear outside your own apartment, she should not be using her toilet,
especially from 11 pm to 7 am when people might be sleeping.

I know this is getting ridiculous.  Laws were only meant to be invoked when
people refuse to cooperate.

response 32 of 119:

Jan 25 16:21 UTC 2007

Jim said he did not smell smoke there yesterday.  I will go check when I stop
feeling sick.  I froze for a few days in the apartment with the windows and
door open, and then on Sunday at 40 degrees at the building site, and still
have swollen glands.  Jim will continue working on the door to the basement
(with a belt sander after he puts more drywall compound or wood putty in the
gouges) but he thinks basement smoke would still come upstairs into the
kitchen around the plumbing and gas pipe holes, which he also needs to plug.
There is plumbing going through the bedroom (to the upstairs kitchen above
it) but we already caulked the boards covering it.  At worst, I might be able
to tightly weatherstrip from living room to kitchen and hold my breath going
through the kitchen to the living room (I have to use the kitchen door since
the front door goes through a smoked hallway).  The side apartment may be
vacant in a couple of months.  Ideal place for a smoker who sleeps days.  It
used to be a local food store and has several times as many fuses as the rest
of the house, labelled meat freezer, etc.

response 34 of 119:

Jan 26 03:38 UTC 2007

There are no laws against working on your apartment between 7 am and 8 pm.
Why should I be forced to move?  The landlord said he would not have rented
to her if he knew she would smoke in that apartment.  He does not have a
written lease.  Many property owners forbid smoking and/or pets.  I don't know
of any that forbid listening to the radio during the daytime - why should I
have to be super-quiet just because someone on the other side of a thin
ceiling wants to sleep then?

response 36 of 119:

Jan 26 14:44 UTC 2007

If Cindy can provide a doctor's note stating she has special respiratory
considerations then he's on the hook for whatever smoke seeps into her
apartment.

response 38 of 119:

Jan 26 21:14 UTC 2007

I'd be afraid of the lady trying to gas stove herself to death cuz that also
could get you too.

response 40 of 119:

Jan 26 23:47 UTC 2007

True ;)

response 42 of 119:

Jan 27 23:14 UTC 2007

Otherwise known as urethane foam. I used it to fill from the inside the 
rusting wheel wells on a car I had. It held all the pieces together as 
well as keeping dust and water out of the interior.

response 44 of 119:

Jan 29 06:05 UTC 2007

Jim promised the landlord not to work on the weatherstripping, in fact he
promised not to even be in my apartment, Sat and Sunday (today) from 2 to 6
pm.  So he went around 7 am and at about 10 am there was some pounding on the
front door from the hallway and it was so hard that the caulking got knocked
out, and then he heard noises in the kitchen, someone walking around and
looked for some weapon like a hammer or something to defend himself and went
to see what was going on and whoever it was had left and slammed the door.

He said the doorbell also rang but since he does not live there he did not
answer it, also he does not answer the phone, just lets it take messages for
me and it rang but nobody left a message.  

He was rather upset, so phoned me and we discussed it and at 2:00 he left and
came back and phoned my landlord who wondered why we could not just discuss
matters with the neighbor and he explained again that she only knows how to
scream abuse.  

There followed a long discussion about how for a year I have been unable to
use the apartment normally because of her sleeping hours, and how we can hear
everything she does upstairs because the walls and ceiling are thin, including
her phone conversations and what she does in the bathroom and bedroom.  And
that I have been super considerate of her sleeping hours but she won't let
us know what her schedule is and if she does it changes.  For instance she
sleeps 8:30 to 12:30 and 4:30 to 6:30 and a few months ago when she refused
to cooperate in solving the smoke problem the landlord weatherstripped her
door to the front hall, without fixing the problem, so we waited until 3pm
when she had been tromping around for an hour, to weatherstrip my door  She
phoned and told Jim she was sleeping.  (I could not phone to find out because
she got mad once when she forgot to unplug the phone).  He said he would be
done in five minutes.  Then she called the police.   Etc.

Jim says the landlord is starting to understand that the neighbor is the
problem, and this house is not designed for people who sleep days.  Much less
to share between smokers and non-smokers.  And that I am tired of having to
be super quiet every day during normal waking hours, without even getting any
consideration in exchange such as her being quiet at night or not slamming
doors at 2 am.

The landlord said his lawyer said he could not change the lease to
non-smoking.  Jim said he could give her a new lease since it is
month-to-month and other landlords have no smoking no pets leases, especially
where air is shared between apartments.  I offered to be super quiet again
on her schedule if she were on a no-smoking lease and followed it.

Jim said he said she said she had gone outside to smoke.  She has said this
before, which could be true, but before she also smoked inside.  

Better than a soap opera unless you have to deal with it yourself.  I have
not been back there since two Thursdays ago.  Jim fetches my mail.  I use
online dictionaries to work instead of my own.  

It just might be illegal to try to pound your neighbor's door open and then
walk through their other door without permission.  Probably more so than
vacuuming or having the phone ring at 10 am.  ANd I know it is legal to
weatherstrip an apartment between 7 am and 8 pm.

response 46 of 119:

Jan 29 07:00 UTC 2007

Quite seriously, she probably does have mental problems, considering when she
screams at us it is often about 'mental health', therapists, and the names
of specific drugs.  

I don't really want to have all my things smoked.  Or smell burning chicken,
as a vegetarian.  

Last time I attempted to be polite on the phone the message was 'get some
mental health' so I stopped answering it.  

Tuesday we will probably go check for smoke.  I have enough stress to deal
with Monday (which is today already).  Jim has weatherstripped another door.
He said he smelled smoke in the furnace room but it might have been Friday.
He can check there first.  ANd maybe weatherstrip that door too, as well as
the door from the back basement to my basement area.  He stuffed drywall
compound in the holes in my kitchen and bedroom floors around the plumbing
and gas pipes and sealed all around all the heating vents and was going to
pry off the baseboard quarter round and seal behind it.  But her return air
ducts run through my part of the basement and we can't seal my place off from
them and still use the bathroom (in the basement).  He might weatherstrip that
door anyway and give up the bathroom.  

This is why his kitchen faucet has continued to drip. 

response 48 of 119:

Jan 30 03:16 UTC 2007

Jim is going to assume the smoke problem is taken care of and work on security
measures now.  I phoned the police and asked some questions about that.  It
is okay to leave lights and radios on timers, as long as the radios are not
loud between 10 pm and 7 am.  This will make the place seem occupied.  The
shades will be kept down.  

The neighbor told me last year not to leave notes on her door (it was
unfriendly?) and not to phone her (she might forget to unplug the phone when
she was sleeping).  I will ask the landlord (or maybe the police) to let her
know that I do not want her attempting to talk to me, phoning me or my
answering machine (she has been abusive to both), or banging on my doors or
windows, or ringing my doorbell, which I will consider harassment and report
to the police.

It is not legal to try to pound down someone's door, or to walk through
someone's door into their apartment uninvited, and we are considering filing
a report on that.   

Jim says the neighbor has succeeded in getting me out of my apartment but now
she has him in it instead and he is going to make normal use of it. Also do
the work on it that the landlord approved of, and which he was doing at the
time the landlord said was okay instead of the time convenient for him.  Which
times were all legal (between 7 am and 8 pm).