There’s another kind of smoke I hear more complaints about each year: tobacco. Because we’re in tighter quarters, renting and buying clustered housing is more popular. And sometimes cigar and cigarette smokers aren’t allowed to smoke inside their own homes, so they use their patios, alleys, balconies and other areas just downwind from your living space, be it indoors or out.

Smoke can also travel through party walls and floors, so indoor smokers send offensive odors into their neighbors’ homes as well.

Outdoor smoking on balconies is increasingly being forbidden in complex housing, but that’s a small comfort to the majority of people whose bylaws and leases allow it.

Clustered housing dwellers can press management about enacting rules when there are none covering smoke. When smoke makes it between walls and floors, those walls and floors are flawed. Unit owners can tear out walls and rebuild them with better insulation. Renters are at a great disadvantage as of the time I write this: Tenants’ rights groups deal with landlord conflicts for the most part – I know of no group aiming to help those being smoked out of their apartments by neighbors.