Recommendations for air purifiers to remove weed smell from neighbors?
I keep getting strong weed smell in my home. It can last for hours. How do I get the smell out or reduce it? I’ve tried opening my windows and using a fan, but nothing seems to work. Would using an air purifier (with carbon and HEPA filters) work? Or am I doomed until either I or my neighbors move?
brownstonenoob
in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago
15
Please log in, in order to post replies!
15 replies
whalien | 5 years and 10 months ago
@stevecym, thanks again for all the helpful ideas. drilling hole into the floor board maybe a good solution. or we come from underneath and remove the drywall in the bottom apartment.
stevecym | 5 years and 10 months ago
Whallen:
i just read a little on this: you need “closed cell foam”. call the companies that make these products and put questions about odor and sound proofing to their tech people. there is stuff written about this. do not ask anyone wearing an orange apron.
stevecym | 5 years and 10 months ago
@whallen:
you said you own your place, right?
this is what I would do if this were my own house. now, to do this, the rock has to be on wood firing strips or studs. I would bore small holes in the walls, up high, middle and low, and down the entire length of the floor, in each cavity between the studs, I would blow in expandable foam. my guess is a typical brownstone would take 60 cans per floor. the rock cannot be laminated directly to the brick or there will not be enough room for the foam to move around and expand.
also, check to see other ways of blowing insulation in. foam is the best as it will seal itself and probably be air tight and better able to hold back odor (me thinks). read about blown in insulations (they are not my thing but I would not hesitate to learn if it were my house).
re, the noise, check with a sound engineer. there used to be someone in lower manhattan like on st marks place. I once called him and he was very free with information. FYI; sound travels from joist to wall (through structural elements).
I feel for you. we are raising a 14 year old and walking a fine but realistic line with the grass thing in this city. having it next door 24/7 makes it harder.
whalien | 5 years and 10 months ago
@stevecym, thanks for much for taking the time to respond to my issue. We do own the home. It’s a two family and built in the early 1900’s. The home was flipped a few years ago and tastefully redone. Unfortunately, they skipped on a major to do when they did the gut reno, insulating the interior walls that face the adjoining row houses. Because the interior walls are brick, not only are they crumbling and porous behind the newly added drywall, but they also let in a lot of noise.
It’s been an ongoing battle. First it was the noise next door, which we battled with sound insulation in the bedroom walls. Not a cheap fix. Now it’s that 24/7 stench of weed permeating every wall that’s facing the culprits on the 2nd floor of home next door.
Asking them to alter their medical marijuana intake isn’t an option. First they’ll deny they even smoke and second they’ll use it as ammunition to smoke even more. They’re not a nice bunch. In fact, I believe their livelihood involves the illicit trade of said substance. They don’t work and barely leave the apartment. T hey fight violently all the time and are a huge nuisance. We feel like we’re being terrorized. Just trying to lead a peaceful life that’s safe for our kids to grow up in.
stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago
and by the way, for me to throw that positive pressure ventilation idea on the table here for a residence where it probably is not practical, is really not that far off. i have worked around buildings all of my life; this is how things get solved in buildings; a group of guys (and now a days women) will be sitting around a table at a meeting, a manager, supervisor, perhaps an engineer or GC, and if we are working for a property management company, perhaps the board members of the property (and they all come from someplace unique). someone will say something that sounds a little outlandish (maybe even joking because it sounds so ridiculous) and the next thing, someone else takes what they said and couples that with something they once heard or saw get done someplace and a solution is found.
the solution usually exists but cost is the limiting factor. i doubt this one will go anywhere, not in the winter anyway. but perhaps there is a small window type ppv machine out there that heats the air a little?
with all these people who will soon be complaining about this odor around the country, maybe small window ppv machines are in our future?
stevecym | 5 years and 11 months ago
this is the problem with buildings. because of the small differential in atmospheric pressure between the top of the building and the bottom of the building, the buildings pull air in at the lower floors (provided the upper floors are not weather sealed) and with it, everything in between (stack effect; the building is a giant chimney). this is why you sometimes feel a draft on the lower floors; it is not a breeze moving across the floors, it is air moving in and up and out someplace up top.
if you have any fire places, be sure they are sealed. Even the neighbors’ fire places up stairs. correct, that is not where the grass is coming from but air moving out through the flue will allow air to come in from other places.
we have to deal with this when using oil finishes in a building and even though it sounds counter intuitive, sometimes we find closing the windows alleviates the problem.
I know this will be useless to you in the winter and will be expensive in the summer, but positive pressure ventilation (ppv) will keep it out. only a little bit of press ure. but it is not practical in a residence. I throw it out there in case someone can think of a way to make it work and not cost a ton of money in wasted heating or cooling or who knows, maybe someone has a ppv device that works in a house without throwing money out the window.
in case you wonder how I know this, this is the kind of stuff real building geeks talk about. in this case “stack effect” and what it does in a building was explained to me by the former National Director of Facilities of Lord and Taylor Dept Stores and this conversation took place at a wedding no less; yeah, this is real fun stuff.
brownstonenoob
in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago
whalen – Really sorry that you are dealing with this. I don’t have any children, but I would be going crazy if I did and had to deal with secondhand weed smoke. As you probably know there is little research (and much of it nascent) about the harms of secondhand smoke from weed or the long term consequences of smoking weed. Anyway, If you own your home and have the funds, you might want to take a look into passive house construction. Besides the lowered energy use, purportedly a benefit of passive housing is the lack of smell and noise from your neighbors. Unfortunately, I rent an apartment in an apparently poorly constructed building in a pricey neighborhood with many weed aficionados (which sounds like your neighborhood).
In the meantime, you might want try carbon air filters over any vents, charcoal bags, air purifiers (tested for removing cigarette smoke) or creating positive air pressure. Supposedly, coffee grounds and vinegar can also absorb/mask the smell. I’m thinking about purchasing some charcoal bags and using vinegar as well as trying to create positive ai r pressure. I’m still looking into the air purifier (not humidifier), but someone mentioned on a different site that it didn’t work. It’s unclear if the person used it correctly and for how long before deciding it was useless. I still need to look into air purifiers more later this week.
Unfortunately, for both of us, we have neighbors who are resistant to using a smoke buddy or vaporizer of any kind and who probably believe that we are boring nags impinging on their freedom to smoke what they want where they want, everyone else be damned.
whalien | 5 years and 11 months ago
We are suffering from the same thing in Bushwick. Sealed every nook and cranny from the baseboards to the ceiling fans in the bathrooms, to every outlet on the wall facing the adjoining home. It’s futile and feels like a game of whack-a-mole. Seal one hole and the fumes find another one hidden behind a wall you can’t see. With two small children in the house, this kind of second hand smoke is not only unhealthy, but feels like an act of terrorism. Thought about tearing out the walls and spray foaming the interior walls, but I’m certain it won’t solve the problem. Is there any solution?
brownstonenoob
in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago
I agree that my best option is to break my lease and move. I won’t be able to until early next year at the earliest which means I will need to tolerate this somehow. My fear is that wherever I move that I will eventually encounter the same problem. Weed smoke is becoming ubiquitous. Nowadays I smell it regularly on the streets. I live and work in popular neighborhoods so this is a trend that isn’t ending soon.
If anyone knows of something that reduces the smell of weed, I would appreciate it. If I have to purchase an air purifier or something else, I will. I just don’t want to keep testing out different devices until I find one that works. Any suggestions would be helpful.
GreenThinker | 5 years and 11 months ago
With the new rent laws, you could break your lease. It states “In the event a tenant vacates an apartment in violation of the terms of the lease, including prior to lease expiration, landlord is required to mitigate its damages by re-letting the apartment.” I think if you give them lets say 2 months notice, they’ll just have to accept it and re-list the apartment. They might try to scare you with some legal nonsense, but at the end of the day it wouldn’t be worth the trouble for them to take you to court up on it, because the law is on your side.
brownstonenoob
in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago
I’ve tried to get the person to use a vaporizer and for a while it did improve. I get the sense the person is self-medicating. I’ve also noticed that more and more neighbors are smoking weed, judging by the whiff of weed I get when I pass their door. I can only imagine that their cumulative smoke will eventually start seeping into my apartment. Until I can break or finish my lease, I just want to minimize the smell.
My building management has been unhelpful. From checking out earlier posts here, it seems I am not the only one. I was surprised to read that the smell of weed can move between neighboring buildings. I will never look at exposed brick walls the same.
GreenThinker | 5 years and 11 months ago
Have you tried communicating with this individual. Perhaps they could vape it? My understanding is that vaping lessens the smell.
brownstonenoob
in General Discussion 5 years and 11 months ago
It’s a pretty old building and it wasn’t well built even back in its day. I’ve tried caulking and sealing gaps as much as possible, but it’s impossible given the uneven floors, radiators and slapdash work done. The smell seems confined to whatever room the person is in. If the smoker is in the living room then my living room smells. Now the smoker is moving from room to room so more rooms in the apartment smell. If it was a just a lingering whiff, I wouldn’t care, but I feel like I’m trapped in the same room with the smoker. It’s really that strong and now lasts for hours. If NY State legalizes cannabis, I can only imagine how many more people will have my problem and how many complaints there will be. Let’s face it, there are many crappy, old buildings like mine throughout the city.
GreenThinker | 5 years and 11 months ago
I’d start with caulking and sealing every gap on the wall that adjoins the neighbors . The baseboards are the main culprit, they would be installed on the lath boards without plaster, so there’s just this large area that air can just pass through. Could also be coming in from up between the floor boards. If this is an older apartment, it’s gonna be an uphill battle. I don’t think a typical air purifying device would suck in enough air from all the possible places it could be coming from.