Gross. We have people down the hall who make the hall reek, and if it was coming into my unit, I would say something to the owner. You’re a lawyer, right? Sounds like you checked the condo docs. Given they’re a renter, I would say something but ask that the owner not tell them who complained. If that’s possible. A note probably won’t get you anywhere.

Are these people of color? If so, I might try to address it personally before alerting the landlord. If they’re white people who would likely not even get a slap on the wrist for their illegal behavior, I might go ahead and alert the landlord and phrase it the way Kate did: their smoke smell is really strong and affecting your quality of life. You don’t have to specify that it’s weed, though I wouldn’t lie if asked directly.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 1 week ago by Dear Wendy.

I’d say something personally notwithstanding. Maybe something along the lines of: “Hi. I wasn’t sure if you knew, but the smell of your weed is not contained to your unit. I have tried to cover it up on my own, but our clothes are starting to smell and we’ve even had to close the office. I’d rather address this with you than go to the landlord. Any chance you can [insert alternative of choice here: smoke less, go outside, switch to a vape pen, eat an edible]?”

And then if they’re unreasonable or say they’ll change but don’t, I’d go to the landlord.

Do you know the landlord? I assume it’s the condo owner, so maybe you do know them and have a sense for how they’d react. An owner of one of the units in my 8-unit building had renters a couple years ago. It was two guys in their early 20s and they’d throw loud parties in a building where everyone else is 30s+. He had zero desire to intervene with his problem tenants, so the HOA board had to get fairly involved. We were pretty new to the building so we didn’t know the owner, but some of our other neighbors did know him from when he was living in the building and they were not at all surprised by how hands off he wanted to be.

Sending better smells your way!

Yes, there are filters but I’m not familiar enough to recommend a specific one. I did a search, and a few came up on Amazon with good reviews:

https://amzn.to/3Xko960

https://amzn.to/3Xko960

https://amzn.to/3ZOHVrZ

These are all under $25 and may be worth the price of potentially solving the problem while maintaining a cordial neighborly relationship (best case scenario!). And if the filter doesn’t work, at least you’ve given a head’s up to the neighbors and if they are at all respectful and decent people, they’ll make an effort to remedy the issue.