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A married couple in the Upper West Side's Ansonia Building are suing their neighbor over her smoking. They claim her smoking is adversely affecting the hallway environment and the health of their four-year-old boy.
Johnathan and Jenny Selbin are both lawyers and say their son Charlie's health is at risk due to Galila Huff's chain-smoking in her own apartment. Huff, who owns Caffe La Fenice just a couple blocks down Broadway, has lived at the Ansonia for 15 years and has been a smoker for 40 years (since she was 17).
While she'd like to quit smoking, Huff says she just can't and has tried to address the situation. Huff gave the NY Times at tour , pointing "to her two Oreck XL air purifiers, double the number the manufacturer recommends for her 635-square-foot apartment." The Selbins, who doubt the existence of the purifiers because Huff has refused to show them receipts, actually think the smoke in the hall has gotten worse in the winter, suspecting Huff is smoking with closed windows.
Huff doesn't appreciate being characterized as a monster for something she does in the privacy of her own home. But smoking tenants are becoming an increasing sore point in the city's real estate market. Apparently concerns about neighbors smoking and the effects of secondhand smoke bring one real estate lawyer at least one new case a month.
A big problem in resolving such disputes arises from the legal murkiness of who's responsible for a remedy like sealing a smoker's apartment so it's essentially airtight, and also the subjectiveness of what constitutes secondhand smoke. Is it direct exposure harmful, or does the slightest scent of smoke constitute harm?
Have you ever been bothered by a neighbor's smoking? Or has your smoking prompted complaints from neighbors? And the Ansonia is no stranger to tenant lawsuits: It's being sued over a "biblical infestation" of roaches by other tenants.
Ansonia Detail, by michaelbrandon at flickr
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Oh, fer cryin' out loud! If these two weasely lawyers were so concerned with the air that their precious little darling breathes, they wouldn't be living in an apartment on Broadway in Manhattan, would they? Always blaming someone, huh?
Really, why is it that the practice of the law attracts such semi-human scum?
It is hard to like anyone here. On the one hand you got a smoker and on the other hand you got lawyers.
As an asthma suffer, I have 4 letters for you, Sommelier. S T F U. The amount of second-hand smoke you get from a neighbor is far higher than pollution from the street, and can easily irritate the throat/lungs. I say set some precedent for this, so I can sue the fuck out of my downstairs neighbors for smoking foul shit all day, and so I don't have to use fans in the dead of winter.
Now, they can move because they have money, but what about those that have to put up with it?
And while caulking works like a charm, if you still have d-bag neighbors like mine, you're still going to have quite a bit passing through.
nivek you can not sue someone who smokes at HIS home, it's a free country, smoke is LEGAL and In my home I do whatever I want as long as it´s LEGAL.
Why they do not sue the Tabacco company? the lighter company for provicing the tool? Why they do not provice the WORLD?
A lil bit of common sense please..
nymichi-
You're pretty much totally wrong. The law recognizes the idea of a "nuisance". A nuisance is when someone uses their property in a way that harms yours. A nuisance is usually something like sounds (say if your neighbor started testing jumbo jet engines in his backyard), lights (say if your neighbor installed a giant flashing light display on his property), or smells (such as if your neighbor turned his property into a tannery). Please see this wikipedia entry for a more detailed discussion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuisance
In this case, I have no idea. It does seem like if the neighbor actually is using air purifiers to eliminate the problem, then it would be unfair to make her do much more, but it would be for a judge to decide the remedy. More generally, I think it would be fair to put in place reasonable measures such as the use of air purifiers, that smokers who wished to smoke in their apartments undertake.
I don't think suing the smoker is productive, but the Sun story talks about getting the board/landlords to address the problem, by plugging leaks and whatnot.
This is a REAL problem. My neighbor across the hall and his friend smoke nearly nonstop, and the hallway and our apartment almost constantly reak of secondhand smoke. Why should I be assaulted by this in my own home?
#5
Everything is legal in this country until you start directly affecting someone else. It's not legal to stab or poison someone, and I can sure as hell make a case for that.
Fuck smokers. Get high off dry erase markers or something, if you really want to damage your body that much in the process. There's plenty of other 'LEGAL' (nice caps) things you can do without fucking with someone else.
Oh, and in case you didn't notice, your home does not include the air circulating into another person's apartment.
Correction: Everything that is legal is still legal until...
SIMPLE SOLUTION= QUIT SMOKING. THERE IS NOTHING GOOD THAT COMES FROM IT. think where the money goes? think what it does to your health and the people around you. cigarettes should be illegal more than anything in this country
Smoking should not be illegal because that would just make a black market for the stuff.
Instead, make it the landlord's responsibility to seal up smokers' apartments. That would force landlords to stop renting to smokers and then when those 'supposed' non-smokers who do rent and want to smoke light up a cigarette, its the smoker's fault and they can get their ass sued by the landlord and their neighbors.
Plus, that would create 'smoker-friendly' residences which would be way more expensive (see: 'pet friendly') because of all the extra sealing and such and maybe *that* would start pricing people out of smoking.
If you want to smoke, move to the suburbs where you can have your own home with air that doesn't filter directly into your neighbor's living room.
*If you want to smoke, move to the suburbs where you can have your own home with air that doesn't filter directly into your neighbor's living room.*
If you want your child to have pure air, move to Alaska.
First let me say that I do not smoke and I hate smokers and the smell and so on.. I´d ban the tobacco but governments doesnt think like me (so many taxes..)
I agree what you all guys says. You can not bother anyone even if you are at your home (the extremely case of the jumbo gear and the lights for example)
If they are a 24/7 ¨machine¨smokers then i changes a bit, but ...
what I think is that what need to be change is the law in this case. If smoke at home is legal, but you can sue and win the case... why do I have to pay for something that I its legal (I say I as they.. sorry for my English guys)
or you make tabacoo illegal or you can win the case of suing someone for smoking in a legal place..sue the city for allow them to do it!
what if your neighbor is smoking pot on a regular basis and it permeates your apartment? i know the person is not on our floor and it must come through the ventilation system. i've posted letters and it continues. i'm not sure who it is in the building. i'm all for letting people do what they want in their own homes but this seems to be extreme. how do i get it to stop?
both lawyers, you don't say.
any other tenants complaining? she already is doing all she can by using air filters.
I think what's affecting the boy is Upper West Side Syndrome.
More than ¨"what's affecting the boy is Upper West Side Syndrome" is what´s affecting the parents..
I sympathize with the couple - I have a neighbor who not only smokes a lot, thereby filling my living room and the hallway with second-hand smoke, be he then tries to cover it up by slathering himself with the most wreched cologne (which stinks up my place so bad that I occasionally have to open the windows or go into the bedroom to get away). That said, I think it's the building that should be responsible for finding a solution between the two neighbors. I would suggest weather stripping the smoker's door as a start. A lawsuit seems a little too far for me. If it's that bad, then the couple should consider moving. Not to side with the smoker, but smoking in private residences *is* perfectly legal, and dealing with your neighbors' crap--whether it's noise, smells, or whatever--is, unfortunately, part of apartment life. That said, it'll be interesting to see if the law changes to protect nonsmokers here. I'm certainly all for the new trend in co-ops to reject any smokers. But we're in a very weird limbo area right now.
Imagine what her restaurant smells like. Yuk!
As usual, we have a huge number of "readers" who fail to read the article before jumping in with their opinions. Nowhere do our litigious lawyers complain about the smell of tobacco entering their apartment, but state that "her smoking is adversely affecting the hallway environment".
Again, does anyone really think that breathing the air on upper Broadway (not counting the stench of self-important yuppie scum)is less harmful than passing through a hallway? Why have no other tenants joined in? Anyone want to be that someone has a relative who wants that apartment?
As for telling me to "STFU"... maybe your neighbors should sue to evict YOU! Your ceasless asthmatic wheezing is keeping them awake at night! Can't you just STOP that noisy breathing and be quiet? And that "inhaler"! How do we know that it's not some illegal drug that you're always huffing?
And please... someone... show me the scientific proof on the danger of second-hand smoke. The danger of pollution from hydrocarbons has been established, but second-hand smoke is as much a bogeyman as sulphites in wine.
Most of us have become more sensitive to smoke over the years due to the laws and reduction in the number of smokers. I've never been a smoker, but don't "hate" them either.
If you buy an apartment in a building of this age, you have to realize it will lack the sealing qualities of a brand spanking new place. If their kid has asthma, they ought to buy a place in a hermetically-sealed building. It's just ridiculous to expect people to quit cold turkey because the structural limitations don't allow them to live under compatible circumstances.
The more I read about this place, I'm convinced the Ansonia is the rich person's version of McKibbin's "hipster dorms."
#19
Here, jackass. Granted its probably an epidemiological study, there's still enough out there not to say otherwise. Why are you and some smokers still denying this shit?
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/secondhandsmoke/factsheets/factsheet6.html
"Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), acute respiratory infections, ear problems, and more severe asthma. Smoking by parents causes respiratory symptoms and slows lung growth in their children."
Yeah, I wonder where I got it from...
Thankfully the schools were in good enough shape for me to play brass, so that I could counteract the garbage I've been breathing.
I'll go back to 'wheezing' and taking imaginary illicit illegal drugs. Thanks for being a good NYC neighbor, asshole.
I blame indoor air pollution. and maybe goods from China that's everywhere in our households.
Public schools were in good shape back then because they had nothing Made in China, just good old Lead and asbestos from USA. and the mimeograph/Spirit Duplicator machine.
And they huff-ed and puffed and blew the walls down.
NIVEK: I'm surprised that someone who would have a logo from FOX as their atavar would believe anything from the government: You're the guys who are always telling us that government doesn't work, and that Liberals want to intrude into our personal lives and tell us what we can't do. But, when it comes to smoking... ahhh, that's different, it seems. You start quoting a study that really doesn't apply to this case, and want someone to lose their home because you disagree with what they do.
What about someone who roasts beef in their kitchen? Do the vegetarians get to evict them because the smell of raosting flesh is screwing with their imagined karma? How about the whitebread-and-mayo crowd? Can they throw out an "ethnic-type" who uses garlic? Eats durians? Don't like the neighbor's perfume? Let's organize a lynch mob and get her, quick! How about that old man whose clothes smell of mothballs? Those are chemicals. damn it! He's threatening our children.
What I do in my home is my business, Nazi!
YSE:
There isn't just a landlord in a co-op. The co-op is owned by shareholders, who may or may not live in the building. The shareholders are represented by the co-op board elected by the shareholders. The management company operates the co-op under the control of the board. So, to modify a co-op building to meet ANY demands is paid by the shareholders with higher maintainance fees, debt or surplus money reverses.
There is no evil landlord guy to obligate changes.
Sommelier,
Congratulations fucktard. One, I had that logo on for the Super Bowl and I'm too lazy to take it off. Two, foul smelling esters and tar are two different fucking chemicals. Go back and take a chemistry course, dipshit. I bet you wouldn't even get a C-.
Typo: two different types.
As in one fucks you up, and one just smells bad. But of course, Sommelier, you don't care. As long as it smells equally foul, it's bound to be bad for you? Right? Wrong.
The US: where shit that annoys nivek should be illegal.
We had a neighbor TWO floors down that smoked like chimneys... the whole apt stank for a while. They were there just a couple months thankfully!
the defendant was on the news, the plaintiff's does not want to be interviewed on camera.
the defendant showed what she does when she smokes,
she bunches up a rug against the door and opens a small window.
the hallway has got to be over five feet wide,
nice hallway, too.
what's funny was when ms. huff said, you want clean air move out of the city.
ciggy smoke don't bother me, diesel fumes bother me more.
This city used to be such a nice place to live before everyone quit smoking and went to law school.
I used to smoke. I reckon many of you who are defending the smoker in this situation, are probably smokers and in denial. Every smoker has to be really good at denial come to think of it.
If I were the family, I'd probably just find another place to live and demand they let me out of my lease.
We lived above a smoker. (Pot and nicotine) It was awful, horrible. But the good news is, our landlord states in the lease that it's a non-smoking building. They were asked to leave as soon as their lease was up. We are now breathing entirely smoke free air and it's so much better.
“I understand exactly what why are going through. And we too are having to use legal options to deal with this. You can read about my frustration in my blog http://nuttermom.blogspot.com”