Dave’s here to answer your questions every Wednesday, so send them to him at tenant@sfappeal.com
I live in a rent controlled, 4 unit building owned by a regular person (not, like, CitiApartments or anything). I’m the newest tenant there, I’ve been here for 6 years, and everyone else has been here 20 or so more. Everyone is really nice, but I’m still the newbie. I like them all a lot!
But! My upstairs neighbor has started dating a guy, in fact, he’s moved in. And I’m both just pettily annoyed by him, and sometimes kind of scared of him.
Here’s the petty stuff: he smokes, constantly. And he’s unemployed, and here all the time (I work from home, so I promise I’m not judging the being at home all day thing, I’m just providing context), smoking. I keep all my windows on their side of the building closed, and the hall is smoky (their front door has a decent sized gap beneath it). And my apartment still smells smoky, as does my clothes, towels, etc.
Ideally, my first step would be to talk to him, I know. But, here’s the other thing, he’s a big, all day long drinker, and he scares me a little. He’s kind of a bully, and gets aggro really easily.
So maybe the solution is to talk to my landlord? But I worry about involving her because I’m concerned that by letting him move in, my neighbor is in violation of her lease, and I don’t want my landlord to use this situation to evict her.
So, here’s my first question: how would you advise me to approach the smoking thing, is there any good way (Maybe you’re just going to tell me to “suck it up, princess,” and I can accept that)? And, second, if I were to pass the buck to my landlord, are there laws that will protect my neighbor and that allow her to have him as a permanent guest? If my choices are to live with the smoke and or to lose my neighbor, I’ll live with the smoke.
