I should point out at the beginning of this that I daily vlog my life and consequently have a large amount of video documentation of things that people would not normally have video documentation of. I am willing to provide this video footage upon demand.

The tl;dr of this (but, please read it) is that I am dealing with an issue of second hand smoke in my apartment and that the landlords are not just refusing, point black, to make any reasonable accommodation (they have literally answered “no” when asked the question in these terms), but are even going to the point of obstructing the accommodations that I am making on my own. Given that they are refusing to co-operate, or even to acknowledge the existence of a problem, I am seeking the structural solution of building a wall in the foyer to keep the smoke out, as well as extreme rent abatement until the issue is resolved.

I moved into a small building in Windsor, Ontario on Aug 1, 2013. At the time, I had been struggling with quitting smoking cigarettes for many years, with various levels of success – I would quit for a few months and then smoke for a few months. I was always an outside smoker, preferring to maintain clean air for indoor spaces. I smoked lightly-to-moderately, depending on lots of things.

The actual truth is that I would not have been able to meaningfully identify a building with second hand smoke issues at the time I moved into this unit. I was in a smoking phase over the summer and could have consequently easily walked through a smelly room without really noticing it. I could have – and did – periodically notice particularly strong smoke build-ups in the hallway and front area of the apartment over the next several years, but at this point I would not refer to it as a nuisance or something affecting my enjoyment of the space. I would have been more likely to describe it as somewhat of a worrying curiosity – I noticed it, and took note of the possible health implications but did not have the prerogative to address it due to the fact that I was still smoking more often than not. However, I need to reiterate that I always smoked outside during the period from 2013-2016. I was actually diagnosed with chronic bronchitis as a child due to the effects of second-hand smoke, utilize a puffer from time-to-time and have needed to always avoid indoor smoke as much as possible, whether I was smoking or not, due to the fact that it can trigger the bronchitis. I had this discussion with the landlord during the process of signing the lease, so he has been aware of my concerns with second-hand smoke (and especially indoor second-hand smoke) for the whole time. In fact, I need the puffer more often before I started smoking. I will concede that the behaviour of nicotine addicts is not always strictly rational, but the fact is that my smoking habits are only weakly correlated with my use of a puffer (certainly, quitting would not eliminate my periodic reliance on it, as it is the result of permanent damage from exposure at a young age).

I made a decision at the end of 2015 to quit smoking over the course of 2016. This was a difficult process, but by march of 2016 I felt justified in calling myself a non-smoker. Slowly, the smoke in the hallway seeping into the living room became more and more of a problem to me. There were a few days in February, 2017 where it started to noticeably bother me by seeping into the living room and attaching itself to towels and other clothing in that space, and I felt the urge to find a way to keep the smoke away from my living space. The smoke at this point was certainly affecting my enjoyment of the space, but I did not at this point feel that the issue required litigation; I thought I could mitigate the problem by taking a set of simple and non-invasive steps.

The smoke is a mixture of tobacco and marijuana smoke. I am not interested in determining the legality of the source of marijuana smoke; I support the oncoming legalization, and simply do not want to walk down that path, although I realize it may afford me with more draconian options. However, I also think that persistent second-hand marijuana smoke should be treated the same way that persistent second-hand tobacco smoke is; I do not think I should have these more draconian options. I am merely attempting to point out that the smell of marijuana is not periodic, but nearly as strong as the smell of tobacco. Again: I do not know the legality of the situation.

Besides on the day of this writing (March 31, 2017), it’s hard for me to state exactly when I decided that the smoke was substantially interfering with my enjoyment of the building, but this is a function of my hope, up to this point in the narrative and beyond, that the issue could be dealt with by a set of simple mitigating actions. The fact that I took the steps I did is illustrative of the smoke functionally interfering with my enjoyment of the space, but I wasn’t cognizant of it at the time because I had that hope of a solution. I suppose it was at the point that I lost hope at a simple answer and realized the need for litigation that the realization finally sunk in.

It is unclear what, if anything, could have been accomplished by bringing the issue to the attention of the landlord. The building is arranged in such a way that smoke from the upstairs is going to seep through the doors and envelop the entire front entrance space. Short of demanding that the tenants stop smoking (which is not a request I would even make), there really wasn’t anything that the landlord could do to keep the smoke out of this space. So, I did not consider involving the landlord to be a productive task. Further, it was not clear how I could even contact a landlord at this point, as the property had changed hands. There is a live-in superintendent (Paul Ratko) that is a member of the family that owns the building, but I do not believe that he is mentally capable of carrying out this role and prefer to avoid him due to his short temper and tendency to verbally harass and at times even threaten me. I think that the unfolding of events demonstrates the wisdom of my choice to avoid this superintendent, as all he ever does is exacerbate situations and escalate problems to absurd levels by being excessively authoritarian and aggressive and demanding. I’ve long sought to speak with somebody that is less interested in ordering people around like a bully and more interested in reasonable discussion. A lot of what develops is a ramification of this individual’s personality, and the negligence attached to giving somebody with a mental disability a sense and position of authority. This is another issue altogether.

The first thing I tried to do was air the space out a little bit. I spent the afternoon of Feb 17, 2017 (which was unseasonably warm) attending an opened front entrance of the building while reading a book. This tactic was not as effective as I had hoped it would be.

The next thing that I did was install a fan at the foot of the stairs directly in front of my apartment. This would have been done early on the morning of Feb 18, 2017. The hope was that this would blow the smoke up and away from the entrance. This was actually initially intended as a short term measure, but what I found was that the smoke very quickly filled back up at the base of the stairs upon dismantling the fans. The fan has consequently been in place more or less constantly since this time.

While the fan does not resolve the issue entirely, it makes a substantial difference. As mentioned, dismantling the fan almost immediately degrades the air quality around the door to my apartment.

I put an air freshener in front of the fan at some point shortly afterwards. I could determine the exact date by analyzing receipts and video footage if determined relevant.

I did not receive a complaint or comment about the fan between Feb 18, 2017 and Mar 29, 2017.

Again: it was not an ideal solution, but it was clearly the beginnings of one. From time to time (often on Sundays), the fan became overwhelmed by the smoke. I could maybe even suggest that the fan spent all week pushing the smoke out only to get overwhelmed on Sundays and have to start all over again. The issue is also strongly weather-dependent, and I wanted to give the weather time to warm up. By the evening of March 26^th, I had convinced myself that the fan alone was not enough and that further steps were going to be necessary to mitigate the problem.

My immediate thought was that I should get a more powerful air freshener. However, as my primary issue is health-related rather than odour-related, I decided to avoid that approach. Rather, a health-related mitigation strategy should have to do with pulling the smoke particles out of the air. A little research suggested that my options were either an expensive filtration system (that I would not have been able to install in the hall, anyways) or a simple process of setting down adsorbents in the space to suck the chemicals out of the air with. The cheapest and most plentiful adsorbent available to me was charcoal. I did, however, still need to mask the lingering smell, as well – even if just for the short term. Frankly, the smoke was very bad on that precise night. So, I decided upon a hybrid strategy of placing coal and vinegar in strategic places around the lobby in order to mask the odour and clean the air. In hindsight, is there any doubt that the smoke was substantially interfering with my reasonable enjoyment of the rental unit?

I did not know if this was going to be effective. If it was effective, I did not know if it was going to lead to a longer term strategy. For example, if the charcoal was effective then perhaps some activated carbon filters could be installed on the wall. What I was really doing was experimenting with mitigation tactics, with a final outcome to be determined by what results could be observed.

So, I purchased a small amount of vinegar on the night of the 27^th and put some of it out in a tupperware container directly in front of my door. I put a smaller amount in a cup on my side of the door, as well. Vinegar is merely a masking agent, but it is a powerful one.

I then picked up some all natural charcoal at a grocery store on the morning of the 28^th. This charcoal is created by burning wood in the absence of oxygen and does not contain additives like lighter fluid; it is nearly pure carbon, and chemically almost identical to the material found in a water filter or a carbon air filter, the difference being a slightly higher level of impurities in the charcoal. The effect of carbon, in context, is that it should suck moisture and gasses out of the air and into itself, thereby cleaning the air of volatile compounds (particularly, compounds with open hydrogen atoms). My sleeping schedule is erratic (I live on disability), and I happened to sleep in the afternoon on this specific day, so I didn’t have time to put the charcoal out until early in the morning of the 29th. The charcoal was placed in used plastic strawberry bins, which were placed in out-of-the-way areas that were neither in the direct line of anybody’s transit nor in areas likely to be affected by weather. I also put some coal in socks and hung them from the railways. I happen to have recorded this process for my vlog, if there are any questions as to the exact placement of the charcoal or whether or not the placement would lead to issues with blowing soot.

It really never crossed my mind to think that this would bother anybody. Carbon is not a dangerous chemical; we use it in our water filters and our air furnaces. Granted, we should not smoke carbon, nor should we allow carbon that has been trapped underground for millions of years to enter the atmosphere in unchecked quantities. But, in the form of unburned charcoal placed in the corners of the lobbies? It just didn’t cross my mind that it would upset anybody, or that it would be something I should ask the other tenants about. I might acknowledge that as an error (I perhaps should have realized other tenants would have questions about it and taken the time to seek out their concerns), but such an error should not have led to the outcome that followed.

I fell asleep in the afternoon of the 29^th, to be woken up by a loud knock on the door some time in the middle of the evening, perhaps around 6:00. I opened the door to the superattendant, who started abusively yelling at me to clear everything out of the way. I was half asleep and not interested in being talked to in an abusive manner, so I grouchily told him to fuck off and went to go back to sleep. I was not fully awake and do not remember the exact terms of the conversation, but I do remember that the bullying and demanding tone from the superintendent was both typical of his demeanour and not something I was able to deal with, half-asleep. He seemed to be incredibly angry.

I did not fall back asleep, but it took me upwards of an hour to wake up to the point where I could deal with the situation. The charcoal had disappeared, and the fan had been unplugged. So, I plugged the fan back in and went upstairs to determine what had happened.

I asked the smoking tenants if they had complained about the charcoal, and was told they had. I asked them what their concern about it was, and they hesitated and she said something about it bothering her stomach. This is not biologically plausible, as coal sucks things in rather than expels things out. The only biological explanation for this is the highly unlikely scenario that the coal put her into withdrawal. So, I do not know what their actual motive for requesting the coal be removed was. The reason their motive matters is that they might have had an incorrect understanding of what the charcoal was meant to do, and what it’s effects might be. Ultimately, though, I was phishing for the feedback on mitigation that I perhaps should have sought in the first place.

They were not interested in discussing the issue further.

The next thing I did was go to the superintendent to acquire about the whereabouts of my coal, and whether he intended to refund me for it or not, as the coal did not belong to him. He responded in a raised voice intended to intimidate me, and followed it be charging directly at me in the manner that bullies do, which forced me to raise my own to overpower his and indicate that I will in fact not be intimidated, at all. I made it clear at this point that I have rights and was not going to be pushed around by him. He reacted by threatening an eviction, which I fully understand was spurious – but is indicative of the broader problem. He expects that he can yell at people and intimidate them as he wishes, and threatens eviction at anybody that yells back. This constantly confrontational and combative tone leads to escalated problems that are otherwise easily resolvable – but I know that, in a broader sense, it is not his fault. He shouldn’t be being placed in these scenarios. It is a type of negligence that he is. There should be a landlord on call to deal with things, and the other tenants should be told to avoid him.

I realized, quickly, that I needed to talk to the actual property owners, who I did not have a direct means to contact. I had to find their phone number using 411.

I spoke to Tammy Allen (co-owner) for about ten minutes. She requested that I send her an email explaining the situation, which I did. She also suggested that she might inspect the premises on the next day. The crux of this email was to explain the situation from my perspective and then lay down a proposal to take steps to remedy the problem by scheduling a meeting where the smoking tenants and I could sit down and have a communal discussion about ways that we could work together to mitigate the problem. A suggested outcome was the installation of (activated) carbon filters on the wall, rather than charcoal on the floor.

I spent the night researching various aspects of the situation (mitigation strategies, legal realities) and came to the conclusion that it would probably be better to just let the vinegar sit for a while to let everything blow over. For me to experiment with carbon filtering is one thing, but for me to expect a landlord to get involved without clear benefits is another. I realized that I should be focusing on discussing ways to further experiment with smaller amounts of carbon filtering as a first step, and then talking about things like installing wall filters only after it’s been determined to be an effective strategy or not. I was clearly jumping the gun and everybody – myself included – would probably be more rational about the situation next week. I expressed these thoughts in a follow-up email, and expected to get some better sleep in the afternoon.

It was about 11:30 on the morning of the 30^th that I got another knock on the door from the superintendent’s daughter who, amongst other things, insisted I dismantle the fan. She unplugged the fan twice, and I plugged it back in twice. The two of them are both mentally challenged, and equally deeply unequipped to deal with a complex situation where rights are being weighed against each other: they merely demanded I do what they say, or else. I had to physically position myself in front of the fan to prevent them from dismantling it – this is a literal and classical breach of the covenant of quiet enjoyment, where an agent of the landlord is physically interfering with my right to fresh air. There was even a moment where they threatened to call the police, but they seem to have backed away when I made it clear that I would actually like an officer present. After a little while, and some childish yelling and taunting back and forth that I must engage in when communicating with them out of default necessity, they eventually went back upstairs. While they claimed to be attempting to enforce the fire code, I do not think they had any understanding of what they were doing, beyond the need to enforce themselves.

It was at this point that the breach of covenant made itself abundantly clear, and I understood that I had no choice but to litigate. They were literally trying to steal my fresh air. I sent a third email to Tammy indicating that the only solution is to build a wall between the two stairwells and I would begin litigation on April 10^th should I not get a proper response before then.

It was Ryan Allen (co-owner) that knocked on my door on the evening of the 30^th. He insisted that I dismantle the fan due it blocking the  pathway and breaking the fire code. My analysis of this claim is that it is spurious: the fan was not blocking the path at all, and was thus not in contravention of the fire code. As I knew he was merely using the fire code as an excuse, I tilted the chair by 45 degrees to make it abundantly clear that it was not blocking the exit. He then began making things up, and I stopped listening and changed the topic to the second hand smoke. I asked him whether or not he intended to make a good faith effort to mitigate the second hand smoke, and he looked at me point-blank and said that he would not. He made it abundantly clear that he had no interest in dealing with the issue, and wasn’t going to do anything about it all. He then suggested that I was “full of shit” when I told him his attitude was the reason I require a legal remedy.

Eventually, I thanked him for his time and informed him that I would see him in court. As he had threatened to remove the fan if I did not do so, I took the fans and vinegar out of the hallway with the full intent of reinstalling them when he was gone – and did. While they remain in place at the time of this writing, if my fans (they are two general electric table fans – I have pictures) are stolen between now and the point this case is heard, I will ask for them to be replaced or returned as a component of the remedy in the case.

As Ryan Allen made it clear on the evening of march 30^th that he did not intend to do anything about the situation at all besides attempt to prevent me from breathing clean air, there is no reason to wait until the 10^th. A fourth email was sent to update the situation.

I am seeking the installation of a wall between the units (this will require twinning the front entrance) because it is the most direct way to deal with the problem of mitigating the second-hand smoke. I initially wanted to deal with this problem incrementally, by experimenting with different approaches and eventually settling on something that is cost-effective and non-invasive to everybody involved. However, the behaviour of the family that owns the building (really, all of them) has been so deplorable and obstructionist that it is abundantly clear that an incremental and cost-effective approach will be met with nothing but resistance and obtuseness. Rather than deal with months or years worth of juvenile conflict, I would like them to just jump to building the wall and have the issue dealt with and put aside for good.

I am additionally seeking a rent abatement to get the point across to them that second hand smoke is a serious health problem that requires a serious response, and act as an incentive for them to mitigate. At the core of their dismissive attitude seems to be the view that second hand smoke is not a real problem. How can this be true, in 2017? Cutting my rent down to the maximum odsp allotment would hopefully send the message that this is, in fact, a problem that needs to be taken seriously and incentivize them to work quickly in building the wall to mitigate it.

I am additionally seeking $8.00 for the cost of coal that was discarded and, as mentioned, the cost of the fans, should they also be stolen.