Inside Stories

Inside Story: “We understand there is a strong herbal odor on this floor”

By anonymous Manhattan renter  | July 13, 2010 - 11:07AM
smokeneighbor.jpg

When my roommate and I first moved in last year, we noticed our floor reeked of pot 4 or 5 nights a week.

Then we realized that all these random people were getting on and off the elevator on our floor.

You could tell they didn’t live there because they didn’t know where they were going and they didn’t fit the profile of the building. They looked like they were in college, and most people in this building are young professionals around 25 to 35 years old.

Also, the walls are pretty thin here even though it’s a big new luxury-type building, and we’d always hear a lot of knocking on this one door, about 3 or 4 apartment down on the same side.

Sometimes it smells really strong in our apartment. We’re not sure if it’s coming in through the hallway or our ventilation.

It bugs me to smell pot all the time at home—but at the same time my roommate and I kind of don’t mind because sometimes we have friends over who say ‘let’s get some pot’ and we send them down the hallway.

The guys who are selling are young and apparently really nice, though I’ve never met them. I don’t feel threatened at all.

The smell is annoying but it’s not enough to make me want to move.  I haven’t complained to the management, but a lot of people have.

Management has sent out a couple of emails to everyone on the floor. The first one said, “We understand there’s a strong herbal odor on the floor. Please refrain from what you are doing.”

Well, they didn’t refrain.

The next email said something like, “We can’t keep you from doing anything within your apartment but please mask the stench by insulating your doors.”

That didn’t help either, but from my point of view I guess I feel there’s only so much you can control in a renter building.  I kind of knew what I was getting into moving into a young building.

And it could be worse: I could be living next to a crack den.

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