This is killing me, Smalls.
Okay, brief update:
You know you have a great job when you can interchange your work clothes and your pajamas.
If I could be any Greek god, right now it would be Morpheus, because being the god of sleep and dreams would make naptime so much easier.
I'm settling into my life and my apartment. (Well, the apartment already felt like home, so now it's just a matter of organizing and cleaning up the boxes.) My only (and big) complaint about my new abode: The guy across the hall smokes heavily. Cigarette smoke seeps under my front door and pours through the vents in the evening, now that the heat is turned off. Help! How do I fix this? This morning I woke up feeling like I spent the night in a bar, and I hadn't even left my apartment. I refuse to allow my furniture, books, and clothes to smell disgusting just because my neighbor has a bad habit.
My favorite TV show ever (well, besides a few others like Star Trek: The Next Generation/Deep Space Nine, Will and Grace, and Dark Angel) just came out on DVD: The Pretender. It's taken them forever to come out with it. So last night I bought it and am in 90s TV drama heaven.
5 comments:
I imagine the best way would be to tell the Landlord about it. That way, he or she could maybe put a filter in the vent or something. You probably would have no right to ask your neighbor to stop smoking since he's doing it in the privacy of his own "home" and the only reason it's bothering you is because of a deficiency on the part of the apartment building itself.
You might have to invest in an air purifier. Check your lease and see if there are any rules with regards to smoking.
I can't think of anything more offensive than asking someone to stop smoking in their own home; I was thinking more along the lines of what I could do to proof my apartment against the smoke.
Air purifier probably necessary in the future; for now, garbage bags, tape, and heavy rugs seem to be doing the trick.
Regarding pajamas in the workplace: I've learned so much about professional apparel. I really thought that once I had a semi-real job, I'd have to go out and buy five business suits and a designer briefcase. In reality, my average workday finds me in jeans or cords and some top from Old Navy or The Gap, plus a shabby messenger bag - pretty much the way I dressed in college. And I still look better than my boss. There is no uniform for life the Real World.
Hi SBP. I have some useful hints to place a barrier between you and smoky. Basically, you have to seal every possible opening on walls shared with or close to your smoky neighbor’s apartment. You should take the covers off of your heating vents, cut similarly-sized sections from a Hefty garbage bag, and use DUCT TAPE (no, there are no substitutes) to adhere the plastic to the back. Put the vent cover back in place and used masking tape (an unfortunate but necessary alternative to DUCT TAPE, if only because it won’t remove paint) to seal the edges. This eliminates A/C as a climate management option, but since it is Indiana, I wouldn’t worry that much. Also, buy some child safety plugs for your electrical outlets so that every electrical outlet that does not have a device plugged in will be covered. Believe it or not, this is a big source of sound and smell transmission between apartments in multi-unit dwellings. If a kitchen or bathroom abuts this smoky neighbor, consider asking the landlord to re-caulk all seams around tubs, sinks, counter-tops, windows, etc. Finally, I would invest in some very good self-sealing, two part weather stripping around the entire perimeter of your door jam (as opposed to just the bottom). It may make the door swing a bit funny, but it is worthwhile to keep your visceral habitat stable and intact. All of that with cost between $25-30 and will take only a few hours.
If that fails (or is too much of a hassle), take solace in the fact that a very well documented, but very rarely publicized property of nicotine is that it is a selective dopamine reuptake inhibitor, very similar to amphetamine (Aderall) and methylphenidate (Ritalin). And while there is not a substantial amount of the drug in second hand smoke, that may still translate into universal cognitive enhancement. Just think, you will be able to work longer hours, concentrate more fully, and organize/prioritize with ease. That may be enough of a trade off (concentration for bar smell). Cheers!
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