What Are Our Rights Regarding Neighbour's Polluting Wood Fired Hot Tub?

thegreenone

Agree with @Herzlos contact the Fire Brigade and ask if they can do an assessment on your property as the AirBNB owner doesn't appear to be interested in safety.  Short term, some big fans to blow back over the fence.  Stage them at a suitable distance back from the fence to do the job but not choke the visitors.

FreeBear

fallen121 said: but he has cameras trained on the hot tub and they appear to be recording. That kind of creeps me out because 1) I'm sure there was a family with kids running around last week

Sounds like there might be safeguarding issues, especially with children in the picture.

Post the question on a local FB group and sit back while the fireworks start to fly.

WIAWSNB

Hi Fallen.
I wouldn't do anything that isn't correct, or that could be seen as retaliation.
Your situation is, at least, a statutory nuisance, and your council should act. But, they are hard pushed, so really need your help.
You need to record these instances when smoke visibly comes over and in to your property. I mean videos.
You need a detailed log - dates, times, extent - accurate descriptions, and not words like 'spewing'.
Try and get an impartial visitor to witness and confirm the smells inside your house.
Do all this, and the council will almost certainly act. If they don't, escalate it to an official complaint.
Cut out everything else - just follow the process meticulously.
ICO - ditto. If their cameras are overlooking your property without justification, then you can act.
When you see the flue emitting smoke, then record it on your phone, showing the extent as much as possible, panning to show how it goes on to your house, and then lean over the fence - still recording, but holding your phone clearly not facing the tub users - and apologise to them for recording, but explain that you have good reason to believe a statutory offence is taking place, possibly even environmental laws being broken, so you are entitled to collect evidence. Reassure them your issue isn't with them - and you wish them a nice break - and that the recording will be kept fully secure unless required for statutory or legal action against the owner. Add that your daughter suffers from asthma, and that the property owner has ignored all approaches, hence you requiring this evidence.
As a side effect of you recording legitimate evidence, you'll unfortunately also likely make them reconsider their choice for the future, and possibly leave an accurate review.
Keep all 'emotive' out of your report.

Newbie_John

As you've engaged in every possible way, I'd go for an option that will discourage people from booking it.. because of previous low ratings.

Get the dog and let it out every time it's on.
Or cats, chicken, goat.. whatever is noisy.
Have a BBQ right next to it making the romantic bath for two impossible.
Composting etc. as mentioned earlier.

Put 10 cameras pointing at fence 😉
Play cheesy music.

fallen121

The issue we have is that the particulate level is environmental health, but they won't investigate domestic premises and point us at the council, who want to come out and observe the particulate readings. Except that these don't conveniently escalate at regular times during office hours when they can be observed by council officials. Who presumably would require adequate notice!

Fire brigade not interested. We have 42kg propane gas bottles next to the wall, which is another worry as not only is the hot tub driven by burning wood but the neighbour has now installed a patio heater right next to the gas bottles but because there's a lot of vagueness regarding minimum distances Fire Brigade referred us to Gas Safe who told us they only deal with improper installations of gas equipment. The fact that there could be a gas explosion seems to worry no-one. Round and round and round in circles whilst everyone points at everyone else.

Small claims court. We need to have cleaning receipts, so we need to spend money to attempt to claim it back and pay court fees, with no expectation that the neighbour would even respond, whereupon we then need to expend more money to have any judgement enforced (Scotland). 

Lots and lots and lots of regulations exist, but when push comes to shove nobody particularly keen to enforce them. All anybody ever does is point us in the direction of bodies who have already turned us away. We have to spend cash we don't really have to try and force the issue with no expectation of ever getting it back. And direct action very difficult when cameras are pointing in every direction. If we are caught on camera committing an offence such as lobbing anything over the wall I have no doubt enforcement will swing into action in that instance and we will be the ones being prosecuted.

Stinky solutions seem the most obvious and cheapest option, but we ourselves are then affected by this and can't then go out to our only outside space. And is very dependent on wind direction!

Very interested to understand why regulations are made and bodies created to enforce these regulations who then create complicated barriers to enforcement whilst everyone sits in offices drawing huge salaries and hiding behind chatbots and out of office autoreplies. It seems like a vast cottage industry designed to keep a lot of people ungainfully employed doing nothing except churning out standard template letters.

fallen121

WIAWSNB said:

Hi Fallen.

You need to record these instances when smoke visibly comes over and in to your property. I mean videos.
You need a detailed log - dates, times, extent - accurate descriptions, and not words like 'spewing'.

We suspect that next door has friends in the council, as they gave us a 3 week window to report and during that period the property was not let out at all. We did submit some logs, but they fell outside the specified 3 week window by which time they had closed the original complaint and wrote to say that we would need to raise a new complaint with "the duty officer" (not their office) and begin the process again. They conveniently forgot to supply the email of said "duty officer" so we wrote back to ask and they did not reply. We seem to be constantly trying to play "catch up". We can't go out in case we miss the hot tub being fired up as their spreadsheet requires us to submit start and end times.

user1977

Why does your solicitor think that getting an interdict isn't an option?

ExEstateAgent

I would definitely think of ways to deter people from using the tub. Nothing illegal, but as said having a BBQ or whatever as close as possible, playing loud operatic music (or the Wurzels), doing DIY close to it so you're overlooking them etc. etc. How about taking up bee keeping? I nice big hive your side of the fence! 

Herzlos

fallen121 said:

Small claims court. We need to have cleaning receipts, so we need to spend money to attempt to claim it back and pay court fees, with no expectation that the neighbour would even respond, whereupon we then need to expend more money to have any judgement enforced (Scotland). 

Ah, I'm not sure how the enforcement part actually works in Scotland. I was assuming that you'd be able to submit a claim based on a quote rather than paying out of pocket and then claiming. 

penners324

I'd be emailing the council planning officer as well as their environmental health officer.

As an Airbnb it should be considered a commercial property and thus a hot tub would need planning permission, I very much doubt it has.

Comlain to Airbnb, the local trading standards officer as well.