Stale smell of smoke coming from our neighbours house

AdmiralX

You may first, complaint to the Local Authority's Environmental Health Team (email) to visit your house and investigate the source of nuisance under the EAP 1990. They may phone you first to arrange an appointment. Keep a log, when the smell persists what time which part of your house. The LAs differ as to how they deal with the issue of statutory nuisance. They are under obligation to investigate complaints. You need to be realistic. LAs do not have resources to tackle all problems. If the LA think there are issues between neighbours they will not act even if something is nuisance, because they do not want to be told they take one's side against another. Your LA may write to your neighbours.

Second, call your LA Environment Health and ask them them to visit you at the time when the smell is there. If the team does not work at that time, sk the LA operator to log your complaint of smell nuisnace.

Third, you may contact your local Counsellor, invite her/him home to feel what it is like, and insist she/he takes care of your case. I found this very helpful and resolved a problem of nuisance to a great extent.

dander

I've been in the same situation and I agree with the posters above who have said it is most likely to be coming in around the joists - especiallu if you think it may be coming down through the ceiling where you have downlighters and you're noticing it under beds - where it's coming up through the floorboards - everything points to gaps around the joists. Fortunately smoke can't seep through walls, it can only come in through gaps, so sealing the gaps will solve the problem.

Yes, in a fair world if the smells are coming in from next door, you should be able to make them seal the gaps, but it's a damn site easier and quicker to just do it yourself - you can get it sorted in a couple of hours rather than months of wrangling and hassle. I did mine by squirting a load of expanding foam under the floorboards all along the wall that adjoins the neighbours and Bob's your uncle, smell gone.