Cooking fumes in my kitchen from the flat below

ThisIsWeird

astron4 said:

He has a recirculating hood as well. There was never a duct for an extractor fan in any of the flats, so all the flats have a recirculating hood.

I have seen his kitchen ceiling and there are no visible holes / gaps, apart from spotlights. However these guys are cooking extensively for 4 hours twice a week (they hire a cook). Onions and garlic are the main ingredients that they seem to be frying, regarding the smells. However, I suppose there must be a good dose of smoke whilst they cook.

My floor, and the area that smells the strongest (under my sink and inside a cabinet next to it, where my boiler, pipework and gaps are) is exactly under that part of my kitchen. Again, smoke should not be penetrating the fabric, even if there was a slight smell.

We discussed installing an extractor fan, but nothing has been done, or will be, if you ask me. Why would someone "do me a favour" and spend a couple of grand for something that's not bothering him?

Spotlights? Do you mean recessed downlighters, or surface-mounted spotlights? The former would be the most obvious cause, as typically they are not air-sealed. This should be easily and cheaply sortable by adding sealed fire-hoods (£8 a pop), but they'd need to be sealed to the ceiling, and not just sitting loosely over the lights in the ceiling void. 

Or, replace the recessed lamps with surface-mounted downlighters, and seal the holes the cables come through.

Very good chance that will do the trick. None of it at your cost, of course.

Is the kitchen on an outside wall - could an external-venting hood be fitted if there was the will to do so?

As much as I love Indian cooking smells, it is utterly unreasonable to have it imposed on you in your own flat. Cigarette smoke would be ditto. Someone's smelly armpits would also be. Ok, that's unlikely to happen, but it's making the point that you, as an individual, can be as smelly as you like, but you have no right to impose it on others.

Do you have anyone to back up your nose, confirm there's a smell, happy to comment on how strong and intrusive it is, and - ideally - catch an occasion where there is visible fug? That later is truly OTT - no-one can reasonably call that acceptable.

As said before, start a chronological log of incidents if you haven't already done so. Make it utterly factual - nothing emotive. Dates and times, strength of odour (obviously subjective, hence looking for witnesses), presence of fug, how long the smell remained.

This is completely unacceptable. You are entitled to live in your own smells only

You have contents insurance? Did you add Legal Protection to this?

Eldi_Dos

DullGreyGuy said:

Eldi_Dos said:

Have you thought about getting smoke detectors and placing them where you feel fumes are entering your flat. If they go off,stage a evacuation of the building until the source is found. Might focus minds.

If you do get around to firestopping gaps this,can be done from below as well as your flat.Expanding foam is not the correct material for this.

How do you make the whole building evacuate by the smoke alarms installed by you in your flat @Eldi_Dos ?

Even in our corporate offices with linked fire system an alarm in one part of the building only initially results in others in the same phase being evacuated not the whole building. 

I would imagine the building is compartmentalised into zones and the "initially" is part of the plan, stop congestion on stairways and other routes.

astron4

ThisIsWeird said:

astron4 said:

He has a recirculating hood as well. There was never a duct for an extractor fan in any of the flats, so all the flats have a recirculating hood.

I have seen his kitchen ceiling and there are no visible holes / gaps, apart from spotlights. However these guys are cooking extensively for 4 hours twice a week (they hire a cook). Onions and garlic are the main ingredients that they seem to be frying, regarding the smells. However, I suppose there must be a good dose of smoke whilst they cook.

My floor, and the area that smells the strongest (under my sink and inside a cabinet next to it, where my boiler, pipework and gaps are) is exactly under that part of my kitchen. Again, smoke should not be penetrating the fabric, even if there was a slight smell.

We discussed installing an extractor fan, but nothing has been done, or will be, if you ask me. Why would someone "do me a favour" and spend a couple of grand for something that's not bothering him?

Spotlights? Do you mean recessed downlighters, or surface-mounted spotlights? The former would be the most obvious cause, as typically they are not air-sealed. This should be easily and cheaply sortable by adding sealed fire-hoods (£8 a pop), but they'd need to be sealed to the ceiling, and not just sitting loosely over the lights in the ceiling void. 

Or, replace the recessed lamps with surface-mounted downlighters, and seal the holes the cables come through.

Very good chance that will do the trick. None of it at your cost, of course.

Is the kitchen on an outside wall - could an external-venting hood be fitted if there was the will to do so?

As much as I love Indian cooking smells, it is utterly unreasonable to have it imposed on you in your own flat. Cigarette smoke would be ditto. Someone's smelly armpits would also be. Ok, that's unlikely to happen, but it's making the point that you, as an individual, can be as smelly as you like, but you have no right to impose it on others.

Do you have anyone to back up your nose, confirm there's a smell, happy to comment on how strong and intrusive it is, and - ideally - catch an occasion where there is visible fug? That later is truly OTT - no-one can reasonably call that acceptable.

As said before, start a chronological log of incidents if you haven't already done so. Make it utterly factual - nothing emotive. Dates and times, strength of odour (obviously subjective, hence looking for witnesses), presence of fug, how long the smell remained.

This is completely unacceptable. You are entitled to live in your own smells only

You have contents insurance? Did you add Legal Protection to this?

It's recessed downlighters. Again, I have no means of convincing them to spend money on something that it not affect them directly, "not my problem" etc. They could always say it politely, or say that they'll sort it out, but more often than not, people don't care, and won't spend money on something that's not their problem.

The kitchen is on an outside wall, but again, they won't spend money to install an external-venting hood just because the flat upstairs is having issues with smells (fug is another issue, but still, we see here that they don't even accept that it occurs!).

I have someone to back me up, first of all my spouse, our cleaner, or anyone else who could walk into my flat while this is occurring, really.

There is already a chronological log: every Monday and Friday 8am-12pm, strength is always so intense that I want to puke, I had incidents where my eyes were tearing up because of onion smell, rendering my flat essentially inhabitable. I have to air the flat for an hour in the cold weather, then turn up the heating for an hour to warm it up...

Again, it's a bit of an intertwined issue here, the smells, which is not life threatening but super annoying, and the presence of fumes which is life threatening.

Thanks for your input and your suggestions, but having discussed with those people in the past, I am just not sure how to convince them that they need to take action for something that is creating a nuisance to me. That's even in the lease document (thou shall not cause nuisance to others, it's really old), but even then, they won't care. I have considered invoking a solicitor, but that's opening up the door to other affairs that I am not sure I want to go to.

I do have contents insurance, no legal protection though.

ThisIsWeird

astron4 said:

It's recessed downlighters. Again, I have no means of convincing them to spend money on something that it not affect them directly, "not my problem" etc. They could always say it politely, or say that they'll sort it out, but more often than not, people don't care, and won't spend money on something that's not their problem.

The kitchen is on an outside wall, but again, they won't spend money to install an external-venting hood just because the flat upstairs is having issues with smells (fug is another issue, but still, we see here that they don't even accept that it occurs!).

I have someone to back me up, first of all my spouse, our cleaner, or anyone else who could walk into my flat while this is occurring, really.

There is already a chronological log: every Monday and Friday 8am-12pm, strength is always so intense that I want to puke, I had incidents where my eyes were tearing up because of onion smell, rendering my flat essentially inhabitable. I have to air the flat for an hour in the cold weather, then turn up the heating for an hour to warm it up...

Again, it's a bit of an intertwined issue here, the smells, which is not life threatening but super annoying, and the presence of fumes which is life threatening.

Thanks for your input and your suggestions, but having discussed with those people in the past, I am just not sure how to convince them that they need to take action for something that is creating a nuisance to me. That's even in the lease document (thou shall not cause nuisance to others, it's really old), but even then, they won't care. I have considered invoking a solicitor, but that's opening up the door to other affairs that I am not sure I want to go to.

I do have contents insurance, no legal protection though.

As before, separate the factual/reasonable from the 'emotive'. Did you really feel like 'puking' because there were delicious Asian cooking smells coming through? Were your eyes really tearing up from cut onions a floor away?

If you claim such things, then you need to assume that most folk would go 'pfffft' to such claims, and you potentially weaken your issue. Unless you have credible witnesses that also puke and weep on your behalf.

I mean, if you go 'puke' or 'weepy' from this diluted cooking odour, then the occupants of the perp house must be positively comatose.

I'm not trying to diminish the effect of this smell by any means - I would find it intolerable to have this when it's not welcome inside my own property - but it's important to not over-egg it. It's an unacceptable intrusion, that spoils your rightful enjoyment of your home, end of.

And, there is most likely a simple - and not too costly - solution.

Time to up the ante. Time to contact your Environ Health and make a complaint. But, first, it's time to inform the flat's owner of (a) simple steps they can take to mitigate the nuisance, and (b) what will happen if they do not - give them a chance.

As always with such cases, if it goes 'legal' or 'official', there are two things that will stick out; the first is, were the perps fully aware of the problem? and (b) could they have taken simple steps to mitigate the cause?

That sounds like a giant 'yes' to both. 

Keep it 'friendly' - always acknowledge - if true - that the cooking smells would, under normal circumstances, have been quite pleasant, but that having it - and fug - imposed on your living area is simply unacceptable. 

I lived in Kennington for a few years, and the cooking smells from next door's Indian family was a bludy nuisance - it had my stomach grumbling while I tried to renovate my bro's house. But it drifted casually in from the outside, and never through the building - a significant distinction.