Can't keep my silence any more!

This is part two of my secondhand smoke series... (See my first post here: No Smoking Please!)

So the smoking is not going away and neither is the marijuana smell. Actually, as I sit here and write this, I'm breathing in the nice ripe smell of pot, at about 10:08 in the morning. And just last night our neighbor spent two very long hours smoking his cigar inside his apartment with all of his windows open. So now it's coming into are house through every little crack and crevice it can find.

I don't like either smell but the cigar is by far the worst. It STINKS! It makes the whole house STINK! And it gives me a headache! The headache is probably more from frustration because I get so angry that my body shakes. So angry that my heart revs up and I can't sit still. I feel as if I could flip this whole building upside down with my anger -- because this un-thoughtful man is surrounded by children, young children. To the right is an apartment with three children, to his left there are two children, and above him (our apartment, which is taking in the majority of his smoke) are one and a half children. We've asked him nicely, my husband then eventually got into an argument with him, and I finally called the cops last week when our whole entry way smelled like a frat party (all following numerous complaints to our HOA). But the cops can't do anything 'cause guess what? We live in the "it's ok to smoke pot for medical reasons state of California." Something I originally supported but at the time didn't realize that many, like myself, are being forced to breath it in without wanting any part in it.

So I've completely changed my stance. In fact, this past November I voted yes on making Marijuana legal, but I won't be doing that again! At least not until laws are put in place to protect those who live in communal living spaces. Just because you like to un-wind with a cigar, or smoke pot for your foot pain (or whatever your reason), why do I need to deal with the negative repercussions of it? Why should my house smell like pot every other day just because you have a prescription? Why should my family be forced into breathing your polluted air just because "this is how you like to unwind....?" I'm about ready to unwind with a nice game of catch with the dog followed by a long round of jump rope with tap shoes on, all while listening to gangster rap with the bass cranked all the way up....

Any way, we have an HOA board meeting this coming week. The landlord of this apartment was told to attend after we sent multiple complaint letters, over the past two months. We have a close friend on the board, and are friendly with another. The only concern we have is that the third member smokes. We just hope that we can get him to see that this is becoming a complete nuisance to our family. We also hope that we can show the landlord that we are very serious about this so he can appropriately fore-warn his future renters.

If the board refuses to see our side then we will take legal actions against not only the landlord of the apartment but our HOA for not protecting us, especially since we are now expecting another little bear in the near future. My worst fear is that we will have to wait a long period of time before this is really taken care of and I just don't want to spend the rest of my pregnancy with this problem.

And yes, there was no formal blogging/Internet announcement for my pregnancy, but I am pregnant. It's fairly early on and I didn't want to announce it online just yet, but it is a major part to this situation. The reason i didn't want to announce it just yet is because I have a big fear of miscarrying and part of the way I think is that if I tell too many people then I will lose the baby. I know it's stupid ~ but I just want to put it out there, in the hopes that, if by putting it out there, I  will (magically) negate my perceived (non-logical predictive) out come. I had planned to wait until at least the second trimester for the big announcement but I just can't keep silent about it when I'm forced to breath in 2nd hand smoke. Blogging helps me to relieve some of my stress and creates a platform for me to occasionally get certain things off my chest (and this whole situation is like having a 20 pound bag of bricks attached to my chest and throat). I guess I'm really just writing this paragraph more as an apology to myself...

                                    

Dear originally pregnancy news planned me, 

I'm sorry but I just had to get it out there... 

For I am about to drown myself in frustration...

xo

Bear's mom

I'd also like to mention that when you're vomiting into the toilet at 1:00 in the morning and your bathroom reeks of pot, it is undeniably the most aggravating moment of all of this. It makes me wish we were renting because at least we could just get up and move!

Sigh...           Deep breath...         Namaste...

So, as I sit here with all windows open and our new air purifier on full blast, the pot stench is starting to subside, but my frustration isn't quieting so easily. What I really want to do is go downstairs and cuss him out and If we didn't have the board meeting coming up then I would. Most people know me as a shy, quiet, reserved person, but when I'm pushed-I will push back! Don't test me when it comes to the health of my children! Just wait till you see this mommy in action...

  I'm about to get Grizzly on your...

All in all -- I Pray that this all just comes to a quick and easy end this Wednesday.


Please keep is in mind!


And if not, I will keep on pushing - pushing until they move out!

xo
Bear's mom

No smoking please!

Living in a condo association isn't always easy. We knew it would have some down falls: noisy neighbors, less privacy, and a lot less room than a two story home. But the price was right, it had what we needed, and we could see the beginning of our family growing right here, in this family friendly neighborhood. It felt felt like the perfect place for us and we were happy.

But that perfect happy feeling mellowed a bit when we noticed our new neighbors were funneling secondhand smoke through our back doors. At first it didn't fully bother us as it was just the two of us at the time, we were only engaged, and worked full time--So when the smoke hit we would passively shut the back doors, say a few inappropriate words, as if the neighbors could still hear us, and then let it go.

Six months later I was pregnant, the neighbor was laid off, and as my belly grew bigger so did his smoking habit. I became infuriated!

Enough was enough, it was time to make it stop! Thus our infuriation was quickly put to work researching our rights, only to find out that we didn't have any...

You can't smoke next to me at a restaurant but you can smoke it up all you want if you happen to be sharing a communal wall with me... How can this be, we thought? It made sense but we had never really thought about it before. Neither of us had grown up in a home where secondhand smoke was an issue, so we just assumed some how that the law would take care of it...

Fortunately, after a lot of research, we found some assistance through the Orange County Health Department. They couldn't enforce anything legally but they'd be there to help and support us if we needed to go to court. They also helped us find a way to file a complaint against our neighbor by arguing that the they were causing a serious decline in our quality of life, which was true! We couldn't enjoy our back patio, or the cool breeze in the evenings, because we had to keep the back windows and doors shut. We also had to frequently turn our air-conditioner on because our living room became a green room during the afternoon when it was left sealed off from the outside world.

It took some time, but the letter went through, the HOA filed a complaint, and the smoking went away... at least for a few days. When it came back we filed a second complaint and the landlord was then sent another letter, only this time a fine was included since the first warning was ignored. And it was just in time because we were a day shy of bringing bear home from the hospital.

Our neighbor was not happy with us, he yelled at my husband for causing problems with his landlord and then yelled out (for the whole neighborhood to hear) that the health concerns of secondhand smoke were a mere myth and complete propaganda by the media--Right then and there we began to understand why he sat out there day after day smoking in front of his own children.

It was hard to have such a clash between the people that lived right by us, whom we saw every day. But it also wasn't right for us to be forced to breath in the smoke! With the strength of becoming parents, we learned to buckle down, to no longer be passive; we were absolutely in NO way willing to wavier on this subject any longer. There are enough things to worry about in this world when it comes to my child, the last thing I need to worry about is having cancerous smoke pouring into my home.

It's been a year and a half since the smoking stopped, and the neighbors eventually moved out. And just as quickly as that year and a half went by, we now all of a sudden have new neighbors who live below. These new neighbors like to smoke, too--cigars and marijuana. The marijuana manages to make it's way up into our condo via the vent or the seems of the walls, and the awful smelling cigars blow in through our back doors, just like it did a year and a half ago. The neighbors currently don't care. Their land lord was sent a warning letter and the second letter is now on it's way. The marijuana is what is getting me the most because I want to call the police but at the same time I really don't want to have to go that far.

What else is there for me to do though? They don't give a hoot (or a puff...) about us, or my daughter, so why do I care even the littlest bit about them? Why does it bug me so much that we have to go through the HOA to get them to smoke somewhere away from the building? I shouldn't have to walk past any of my neighbors and not be able to say hello, I want to be the neighbor that's always kind-the one you always hope to live next to! But most of all, I don't want to keep sharing those negative feelings when we accidentally share a glance... a common vibe of "I wish you'd go away!"

I need to remind myself that no matter who these people are or what they do, my job is to protect my family.


I personally don't have anything against people who smoke, to be honest I smoked a little in college so I understand the appeal. But I grew up, I became concerned about my health, and when I graduated so did the smoking.  Never did I think that my first home would remind me of my first college apartment...


Oy! I'm just looking forward to when this is all behind us.


Bear's mom