Smoke Smoke Smokin' in my condo

UMMMmmm

Trudeau...   The Past Prime Minister said it best when he said the "Government has no business in your bedroom"

What would he say about this?

Section 2(1) of the Human Rights Code provides that:
2.  (1)  Every person has a right to equal treatment with respect to the occupancy of accommodation, without discrimination because of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status, disability or the receipt of public assistance.
For the purposes of section 2(1) “occupancy of accommodation” has been interpreted to include living in a condominium corporation and “disability” includes a medical condition which may be irritated by the presence of smoke.
It is crucial to note that the Human Rights Code takes precedence over all other Ontario provincial laws, including the Condominium Act.
http://www.millerthomson.com/en/publications/newsletters/mtcondolaw-ontario/june-2014/the-smoker-next-door-responding-to-smoke

Meanwhile, those who smoke on balconies and carelessly flick their butts away are responsible for fires.   Who says so?    The Fire Department.

In the last five years, cigarettes sparked 97 fires on condo and apartment balconies, tallying $45M in damage, said fire chief Ken Block.
That includes the Clareview condo complex fire in May sparked by cigarette butt discarded into a diaper pail, which left more than 300 people without a home.
"Fires caused by the improper disposal of smoking material are completely preventable, and yet are the cause of some of our city's most dangerous and devastating fires, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/cigarette-butt-receptacles-ordered-for-condo-apartment-balconies-1.3114066

So where will we go for a cigarette?

What about marijuana?   Legal Medical use...  I have a permit / script for that...   right?

What are your thoughts?

Whats Your Neighbour from Hell Story?

In my column on April 2, I wrote about a study by Halifax Home Insurance in the U.K. which reported that more than 360,000 Britons, or one in 10 people, moved home because of irritating neighbours.
I expressed my doubts that that statistic would apply in Canada and I invited readers to contact me if they moved because of a “neighbour from hell.” To say that I was inundated by emails would be an understatement. I stopped counting after three dozen.
After reading far more emails than I expected, I’m now prepared to reconsider: it seems that many more people than I thought move to get away from their neighbours.
Many readers wrote to complain about junk in the neighbour’s backyard, noisy “boom box” speakers, rowdy friends, drifting smoke from cigarettes and marijuana, weekly parties, loud music, and even conversations across the backyard between adjacent neighbours on each side.
Don wrote in to say, “Were ‘bad neighbour’ insurance available, we would certainly have bought it.”
Several readers described musical jam sessions in the basement or garage of the home next door or across the road. Typically the sessions involved electric guitars, amplifiers, and drum sets which were in use all day, or all night, or both. Arno found an effective way to end the nightmares. When the musicians were evicted for rent arrears, he convinced his daughter to buy the house. Problem solved.
Sandra complained that there is no Toronto bylaw prohibiting this kind of noise between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. She is ready to move.
Diane emailed from the 905 area. She has called the police 40 times complaining of harassment, but tells me that they have not been helpful.
Lisa lasted eight years with the neighbour from hell next door. This neighbour delighted in repeatedly complaining about non-existent noise coming from Lisa’s house. Every time the police arrived, they would find the house in darkness and everyone sleeping. The neighbours damaged her pool equipment, threw eggs onto the pool deck, dumped soap powder into the pool and put a loudspeaker in their window tuned to static at full volume.
“The police wouldn’t do anything and neither would the courts,” she wrote.
Back in 1985, Marcia moved into a townhouse only to discover that the neighbours kept a noisy goat in the backyard. Marcia discovered that a single goat is regarded as a pet under city bylaws.
At the hottest time of the following summer, Billy was slaughtered in the garage. The stench survived Billy by several days, and eventually Marcia’s family put their house up for sale.
Diana moved after discovering an illegal rooming house next door. She once found a neighbour who was either drunk or dead lying in her driveway. Another time, the neighbours were changing tires and working on their cars in her driveway. After living with loud music, rabbit droppings and cat urine on her doorstep, she reports she is pleased to be out of the house now.
After living in her house for three years, another reader had a neighbour from hell move into the house behind her. Two large Dobermans were kept in the backyard permanently. There was a heavy rain the following spring and the neighbour was on higher ground. It was only after waves of liquid dog poop started flowing under the fence that the reader moved out. Her two next door neighbours moved shortly afterward.
For anyone considering buying a house or condo, the lesson from my torrent of emails seems to be: Check out the neighbours before you buy.

Bob Aaron is a Toronto real estate lawyer. He can be reached by email at bob@aaron.ca, phone 416-364-9366 or fax 416-364-3818.
Visit the Toronto Star column archives at http://www.aaron.ca/columns for articles on this and other topics or his main webpage at www.aaron.ca.

Do you have a neighbour from Hell story? Why not add yours here now...

We are all afraid of...

Yes the neighbour from Hell!

Who lives next door; How do they keep their place? How will we get along? This is a fun although sad vignette that I found in MacLeans

The builder tells a different story: “[The client] spent more than he intended; he asked for things that weren’t part of the contract, and he manufactured deficiencies.” The matter went to court, resulting in suits and countersuits; issues remain before the courts, which is why none of the parties agreed to be named. A few months into the fight, witnesses report, the businessman turned into a neighbourhood building-code vigilante, calling in inspectors to check other houses the builder had constructed in the area, even reporting hedges that were mere inches higher than code allowed. “He would get up at 6 a.m. every morning to move his car three houses to block access to a building site,” the builder claims. The businessman counters that the builder blocked his car and spewed obscenities one morning when he was driving his children to school.

When the businessman saw the builder’s name associated with the annual fair for the local school, which his children attended, he threatened to pull his own sponsorship. “He told the principal, ‘I’ll bury you in policy,’ ” says a neighbour. The businessman says he reviewed the school bylaws and noticed the school was in flagrant violation of many of them. One casualty was a lottery for the daycare centre, which was shut down for lack of a proper licence. “They lost 40 per cent of their funding,” says his neighbour. He even tried to ban cotton candy at the fair because it didn’t comply with the school’s healthy-eating policy. “The nitpicking was unbelievable,” says one resident. “He could have cured cancer with the time he put into creating problems in the community.” The businessman’s vigilance “created total paranoia,” says a neighbour, so much so residents were afraid he’d report their annual Canada Day fireworks display, which didn’t have a licence.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/01/21/the-next-door-neighbour-from-hell/

You really need to read the rest of the story to find the dedication and effort this neighbour placed in Getting the other Guy!

Do you have a neighbour from hell story?

Tell me about it....