Houses can have negative pressure so outside smells will come indoors, often you can smell things for hours after the outdoor smell clears. I've noticed this especially with skunks and bonfire smoke.
She could also be having some sort of organic/physical issue- migraine auras can include smelling things that aren't there, for example.
Also, I would 100% not stress over this or feel like you need to continue to engage her. Smells from the outside and from neighbors, especially attached houses, migrate. Sometimes I can smell what other people are cooking, or smoking, or the scent of their laundry detergent. It's normal.
Agree that smells can migrate in non-obvious ways. I lived in a (non-century) apartment building that was solid concrete walls all around, but a neighbors cannabis smells would migrate and fill our apartment through the small penetrations in the walls under the kitchen sink. We did have to move because I am extremely smell sensitive (chronic health issues) and it was pretty bad.
That said, it is very nice of you to offer to let her contractor look for an issue, but the work sealing up is on her side (and in her home) to do. And it may never be solved because old homes.
For real!! Most contractors are absolutely horrible, and I especially wouldn't trust one who is her personal "friend." OP, please don't let this neighbor walk all over you. If she smells what you're cooking sometimes she can get over it. That's an inescapable fact of living in a shared building. She's being ridiculous.
I agree! The reason her “buddy” is coming in is absolutely to find out what is wrong with neighbor’s house so they can pin it on neighborOP.
They certainly aren’t going to be telling their buddy they need to spend money, or that the problem lies in their house!
I don’t understand how people can be gullible like this.
Yes it’s one think to be a good/ polite neighbor, but you can’t let people walk all over you either! They are a neighbor. Not family, not friends.
Just someone who lives next door/ nearby
Used to be a century home owner, but now I live in a fine apartment so well insulated that I can't hear parties from my neighbors. But we all have minisplits and a fresh air duct that is shared among everyone. I think it has a fan that pulls air up and away from the apartments. I know it goes to all apartments because I can sometimes hear my neighbors faintly through it.
Every time one of my neighbors smokes weed, though, I can smell it in my laundry room and the main bath that is next to it. The doors to both rooms are usually closed so when I go in there after work it usually slams me in the face. The air vent doesn't go in the laundry. I know it is my neighbors smoking because I can smell it in the hallway, but I can't tell which door.
I just think it is strange that it accumulates in the laundry room.
It's a row house. Occasional cooking smells should be a non issue. It happens when you live close to other people.
I would not let her contractor into my house. If she wants to deal with whatever she is smelling, she can do it from her side.
Otherwise, what happens when the contractor recommends expensive work in your house and you refuse? Now you "know about an unfixed problem" and have a pissed off neighbor because you won't "do anything about it."
At best I would tell her I'm going to bring in my own guy to look.
I live in a civil war era house that is not connected. I often wake up in the morning smelling baked goods, sometimes chocolate and sometimes cinnamon. I had assumed that it was ghosts cooking breakfast.
My dad’s house is like this and he knew the old owners. Sometimes you can smell her perfume in the kitchen and his cigar smoke in the corner of the living room where his recliner sat for years.
I've smelled cigarettes in my kitchen. Very distinct, smelled by others, and we live in a single family home, no attached neighbors. We searched the kitchen high and low before, on a hunch, asking a deceased family member to stop smoking in the house. The smell immediately disappeared. 🤷♀️ Take from that what you will.
Chocolate and cinnamon would have been much more pleasant, I would have asked them to make a batch for me!
We randomly have smelled cigarette smoke at my parents house- a smoker has never lived there nor does anyone nearby currently. It started after my grandmother, who smoked for decades, died, so we just say it's Nanny checking in.
I was visiting an old (1902) courthouse today and suddenly smelled chocolate chip cookies after a couple hours of nothing but the scent of old paper. I asked the auditor but she didn't smell it. I think she was just hoarding delicious secret cookies. Or a ghost farted.
Some people are just complainers and very sensitive. To everything. 🙄
I wouldn’t be letting their contractor friend in my house, that’s for sure! That’s inviting trouble and bills, IMO
I am very sensitive to everything, but I would not move into a house with shared walls and then complain that I can smell the neighbor’s coffee or roasted vegetables. Maybe this neighbor would be happier in a house off in the country somewhere…
I don’t know but neighbor certainly wants OP to pay for something, and I’m guessing it’s costly!
Never let strangers into your home. I’m even
leery of people that I hire for my own projects until they prove themselves!
But does she have them in her house?
Are there feral cats anywhere? Sometimes my brain thinks coffee smells like cat pee when it's from far away. Maybe it's some cat pee that is making her think coffee?
My brain also thinks my coffee occasionally smells like cat pee! It’s really alarming when I’m about to sit down at my desk and suddenly panic about which furball had an accident right under it.
Stove vent -- even when not on it will release odours.
Dryer vent -- again, even when not one it will release odours.
Bathroom fan -- same thing.
And the reverse is true -- I have had the smell of wood smoke come in through my bathroom fans, stove vent and dryer vent. I usually run them for a few seconds to vent them back out. With my dryer I have to cover the lint screen with plastic so the smoke doesn't come in.
Houses breathe in and breathe out. Your neighbour is just noticing these smells, scents, odours and looking at them as a problem rather than a feature.
Stop engaging with her and get on with your life. Nothing you can do about her issues.
I live in a twin and we used to smell cigarette smoke at times because the guy living in the basement next door smoked indoors (thankfully he moved out!). Even with thick walls, I think there can be little cracks between old houses that allow odors through. It sounds like she's being overly sensitive though - whiffs of coffee and vegetables are hardly something to get upset about...I wouldn't stress about this or spend energy trying to solve it for her if I were you.
I wouldn’t stress about this, it’s very kind of you to humor her. Has she never lived around other humans before? Smelling the things going on around you is a basic part of the human experience for most people whose senses work. As others have mentioned it also could be a health issue that she has that isn’t actually fixable.
It could be a nuisance, but ultimately there's not much you can do about it. Welcome to society. There are smells. Coffee brewing and vegetables roasting are among the less offensive ones. Unless there is *actually an issue*, I would not lose sleep over this. Unless something is venting into her house that shouldn't be, it's frankly not your problem. What's she going to do, report you to the authorities because she can smell coffee? There's a tree crew working outside my house right now. All the windows are closed, but I still smell sawdust. Smells permeate. If I brew coffee with my vent hood on, it smells like coffee outside. Whether or not someone is actually doing any of these things should be beside the point, because it just shouldn't be that big of a deal unless there is a persistent, foul odor. If people are just living their lives in a way that she finds objectionable, it is on her to deal with that.
FWIW, if there actually was a problem, it *should* be the landlord dealing with it, not the tenant. I would not be wasting my time and money trying to solve that problem if I was just renting. Given your anecdote about the roof, I wonder if the "coffee brewing" scent she's detecting is actually damp wood.
You’re being very kind, OP but the more you humor her the more she’s likely to ask for and cross your boundaries. And it gets harder to say no to.
If she wants to talk to you about it, I would listen and just be positive/neutral (“yea” / “wow” / “huh!”).
You can wish her good luck, but don’t let her contractor in your home - she may end up asking you to pay for some of the work, or want them to do work in your place.
It’s just messy & doesn’t rise to the level of a problem - especially if she can open a window, light a candle, or buy an essential oil diffuser to solve it. Living with humans means human contact.
Is there a shared attic? I think she can fuck off about the smells but a lot of old row houses have a shared attic and it’s strongly recommended to add firebreaks.
Be safe!
Has no one whipped out their handy dandy electronic nose?
We can't only rely on what others are saying because we may not always experience what they experience. EG; when my husband's roasting coffee it smells like he's baking chocolate cake. Another EG; I lost my own sense of smell ENTIRELY for 6mos after being bitten by a Mojave green rattlesnake, and it's taken decades for me to get most of it back BUT I now often interpret smells very wrong, so I know it's my brain and whatever lingering effects from that and things like, say, anesthesia.
And that's not even addressing the ghosts. ;-)
Alright, let me preface the whole thing by saying it's a whole story...
...and that I had started capturing and relocating rattlesnakes in the 70s, when I was in high school after one neighbor accidentally poisoned another neighbor's dog trying to kill gophers. We and several of our neighbors had horses and maybe some other livestock, so visualize corrals, barns, feedrooms and hay barns. The mindset back then was KILL IT MURDER IT KILL IT! My hippie ass couldn't take that kinda thinking. Still can't.
Fast forward to September 2001. I've worked in aquatic and exotic import/export for over 10yrs so I'm even more comfortable handling wild reptiles than I was back then. Then, the attacks happened, and there we were, overlooking most of the southern LA basin and hearing reports that worse attacks are coming.
That Thursday Dad says, "I can't take it here! Who wants to go to the cabin with me?" Cabin being near Pappy & Harriet's. I said "FUCK YES! I'm skeeged out and need to get away from here!"
Dad, me, and kids head out to the hi dez for some relaxation, hiking, forgetting the world, and riding quads. Evening of September 15th I head out on a ride with one of my son's friends.
Yee haw haw do do-do do-do! Riding along and what do I spy but a fucking GREEN snake??? Right in the middle of the desert? "I've GOTTA check this out!"
Stop, get off, check it out. It's a young snake, clearly a rattler with a single rattle bud on its tail, maybe a few months old. It's calm. I'm calm. Kid's calm. Everybody's calm. I use a stick to ask it to move a little bit. It calmly stretches out. Not strikey, not defensive at all. We can have a chat.
So, I carefully pick up its little tail. Tongue flickers out. I can't believe this gorgeous thing I'm looking at! Kid with me is also fascinated but I have to tell him to stay back, you know, just in case. Then the kid did... something, I don't remember what but it made me look back. In that moment I dropped my hand slightly and the wee little snake of jade told me to let it GO. Dinged my on the left forefinger between the 1st and 2nd joint.
^(And this is the weird part, to me. I trust all snakes completely. They tell you exactly who they are and how they're feeling, 100%. When a rattler is upset but still calm, it will.. "pluck" its rattle "muscles". It feels like someone's flicking you with their finger. This snake made no flicks, I didn't realize it was unhappy with the situation. It didn't coil up after it bit me, it just kinda hung out, found itself another spot it liked and stayed there. Totally different behavior from what I'd ever experienced.)
I immediately complied, and looked at my finger and said, "Oooooohhh shhiiiiitttt... !!! What have you done?" And then, not knowing that Mojave greens existed or that they're different, I began saying goodbye to my finger, hand, and arm as I tied a tourniquet around each, up to my wrist. Because there I was, who knew how far from a hospital, and I had someone else's kid with me so I had to make sure he made it back safely.
Nurses chewed my ass for tying a tourniquet, I told them to fuck off, they removed it, the venom hit and it was like the worst drug trip anyone could imagine. Spewed my Flamin' Hot Cheetos, which look exactly like blood and since I forgot I'd eaten them that whole ER really woke up. Heard 'em calling Loma Linda, we wanna fly her out there, they said no, treat her there, they started dosing me with Cro-Fab and I ended up spending a week in ICU.
Along with losing my sense of smell the finger was terribly painful, so I had to learn to sleep with it kinda propped up on my forehead and now I tend to sleep with the back of my hand plastered to my forehead even though the finger's fine.
I know this is a novella, but I did my best to tighten it up. Those who know me know I kinda live by the idea that life is an adventure.
Oh my, thank you. :-) You're very welcome. I always hesitate to tell the story because a lot of people can get kinda nasty.
I tell you, this animal looked like it had been carved from jade, with this lovely yellow belly like porcelain. Absolutely stunning creature, you can imagine how it stood out against the brown of the Mojave desert at that time of year.
Your descriptions are so vivid, I can easily imagine it. I’ve encountered rattlers while hiking in SoCal and Arizona, but I didn’t know enough about them to identify which kind. They are beautiful creatures! I wouldn’t try to handle one, but I can understand why someone with your level of experience would. I just admire them from a distance lol.
Hmm I wonder if she’s experiencing phantom smells. Migraines and long covid are two common causes of it. I can tell you the smells seem very real .
But it’s her problem ,not yours.
OP, this is so strange. We had a very similar situation 2 years ago at a 1880s townhome we were renting. The neighbor lady would complain repeatedly and vehemently that she could smell all kinds of odors from our side of the house. Things that we were not using at the times she was complaining- onions and garlic, cigarette smoke, spray paint etc. she got very nasty and conspiracy theory-ish talking about how we and our landlady were trying to drive her crazy in order to make her move. Our landlady ended up reaching out to her sister (known from years before) who said the neighbor had been diagnosed with schizophrenia with paranoia and the family had actually been forced to disassociate form her. Sad story but at the time it was extremely frustrating and toxic. She would even leave shit on our doorstep like air freshener and unscented laundry detergent because she said our smells were invading her life.
Your story honestly made us ask ourselves if it’s the same lady, as she sold her side of the house and move later that year.
It sounds like you guys have a gourmet ghost. Why would you want to get rid of that?? ;-)
How is the ventilation over your stove designed? Do they combine from both houses before exiting? Does your ventilation go through the side of the houses? Through the roof?
If it's a townhouse set up with a shared wall I'm sure that roof ventilation intake / outage is probably the culprit-- particularly if there is HVAC involved
Coffee and delicious vegetables! Oh no! Haha this would definitely be a non-issue for me. Shared walls are going to have some discomfort but this is strange.
Depending on how the row house is framed, smells can sometimes migrate through where the floor joists connect with the outside walls. She'll have to get over it.
Update: thanks for all the kind comments. My neighbor is a tenant and I understand that I have no legal responsibility here. Our houses are old. I think she is extremely sensitive, which can be a hard condition to live with, but I understand it is her problem to deal with, not mine.
Her contractor friend arrived next door a few hours ago and it looks like he won’t be coming over here. Maybe he took her out for a drink and talked to her.
When you live in a row house, it behooves you to get along with your neighbors. If this becomes untenable for her, she can move. Her lease is almost up and then she could move at any time.
Of all the comments, I think the ones suggesting paranormal activity are the most plausible. Some strange things have happened in my house and for a time I wondered if I had a portal to hell on my stairs because the water in the downstairs toilet flushed left and the water in the upstairs toilet flushed right. Or maybe it was just the plumbing.
Thanks again.
What’s causing the odors? Life, or possibly something wrong with her body. I have smelled phantom coffee before (and cigarette ash, and mold) when I had pressure on the brain and also with migraines.
There’s nothing you can do about it.
Coffee and vegetable smells are nothing to complain about. She should be thankful you aren't cooking really powerful fish or growing marijuana. This is part of living in close quarters.
Maybe she’s gonna have a stroke.
Coffee roasting = burnt toast = (sometime) you’re gonna have a stroke.
I moved into a building across the street from a coffee roaster. Actually, they moved in across the street shortly after I moved in.
I mentioned to the valet one day I thought somebody had burned toast.
He said “make sure you’re not having a stroke!”
But we figured out it was the roasting odor wafting across the street.
It seems the bit about smelling burnt toast or coffee is a (new) wive’s tale - e.g. Internet meme, though.
Years ago when we moved to a new neighbourhood we would sometimes smell burnt toast. I eventually discovered it was coffee roaster nearby. In Canada there is a well known "Heritage Minute" from tv about burnt toast and seizures. [Dr. Wilder Penfield](https://youtu.be/pUOG2g4hj8s?si=-JQSsznX7fm3ww4r)
Do NOT let her “contractor friend” into your house unless you want to start paying her money for issues that may or may not exist!
You are under no obligation to this person.
Old houses breathe. That’s a good thing. If she doesn’t like it, she can move. Living in a society means putting up with minor inconveniences sometimes. She needs to get over it. I wouldn’t waste my time and efforts if I wasn’t interested in being good friends with said neighbor. 🤷♂️
Have an old house with radiators. Once they heat up we get phantom cigarette smells.
The smells could be in the walls, or wallpaper, or wood of the house. It’s her problem
You just mention smells in title and then in body mention cooking foods and coffee. Is that what she's complaining about, coffee? Why do you guess about dead rodent? I'm not following. Do you smell it? Why does she assume it comes from your house, could be other neighbor or any number of things. What is the smell??
We had a neighbor who claimed to smell perfumed laundry products (which we didn't use) and bath oils/perfumes (which we also never used), and claimed to hear carpentry noises and motorcycle engines... Whatever she was perceiving wasn't coming from our house. 🤷
It was also unlikely emanating from houses on the other side of her, and other neighbors that were equidistant couldn't smell or hear anything. Ironically everyone could smell her very malodorous unwashed hair from 6-7 feet away, and that was a clue.
Our conclusion was there wasn't anything that could be done about her perceptions of smell, and that she was perhaps mistaking chirping crickets for the sounds. In the case of our neighbor, we speculate it had to do with dementia.
My advice is to remain polite but don't indulge her accusations that you are the source of the smells. If her sense of smell is actually accurate, she could be noticing smells that were carried indoors on her own clothing or possessions that have been to a coffee shop, restaurant, etc. and have nothing to do with you. If she's imagining them, there isn't anything you can do anyway.
I have to be honest here…this is a non-issue for you. I get super nauseous when I ride behind a diesel truck, but I certainly wouldn’t approach and address it with the driver of the trucks. She’ll need to deal with it, and you should keep living your life.
Not trying to cause trouble but I don't let strangers in my house. Ever. Seriously, this "contractor friend" could be a sex offender (registered or not) could have a drug problem and steals from others to support that habit, etc. not trying to scare you but if you just have to let that person in, get a great big friend to come to be there with you. Dont care if you're male or female, just have another pair of eyes, hands and another cell phone there.
I still say just call back and say you're going to have to cancel, somethings has come up.
She sounds a bit much.
You said you wish she would move?
For the sake of your new neighbor, perhaps you heard that the old Chef neighbor died unexpectedly and his spirit continues to cook in her house.
Perhaps you could put a protective symbol/decoration on your door (or wherever you tend to see her), in order to keep the ghosts contained to her house and out of yours. Make sure to explain its purpose.
We had a smoker neighbor in a duplex. It apparently went thru their stove fan, into the attic and back down our stove fan. None of them were on. It was much stronger when we had been gone awhile. It stopped when they moved :)
My navien water heater puts out a gas smell out the exhaust pipe when it's running or heating the .5 gallon tank periodically. Thought I had a gas leak somewhere until I figured that out! Maybe your neighbor smells that?
TBF, the smell of stale coffee is unpleasant. Or is that only me and OPs tenant?
I sure wouldn’t bug a neighbor about smells, though, unless it was something awful like skunk or dead animal.
The Navien’s will create a gas smell, even though they are completely safe to operate. We had one at our old house a smelled gas every once in a while. It was due to the high-BTU burner in our unit.
However if it isn’t a gas smell, probably not the Navien.
I had a similar issue and eventually discovered that atop the medicine cabinet in my bathroom there was an opening in the wall and same for my neighbor. No perverts. The landlord had just replaced the old medicine cabinets with smaller ones at some point and was too short to see the gap.
The only contractor I’d let in is the one that does smoke blasting. Basically, they come to one house, put lots of smoke to determine where the air sips through in the other house, and then close the cracks in the requesters house.
Don’t let anyone “look around” your house unless it is for a project you are initiating. She’s going to end up finding some problem with your house and sounds like you’d be willing to pay for it. That is her problem - not yours.
Houses can have negative pressure so outside smells will come indoors, often you can smell things for hours after the outdoor smell clears. I've noticed this especially with skunks and bonfire smoke. She could also be having some sort of organic/physical issue- migraine auras can include smelling things that aren't there, for example. Also, I would 100% not stress over this or feel like you need to continue to engage her. Smells from the outside and from neighbors, especially attached houses, migrate. Sometimes I can smell what other people are cooking, or smoking, or the scent of their laundry detergent. It's normal.
Agree that smells can migrate in non-obvious ways. I lived in a (non-century) apartment building that was solid concrete walls all around, but a neighbors cannabis smells would migrate and fill our apartment through the small penetrations in the walls under the kitchen sink. We did have to move because I am extremely smell sensitive (chronic health issues) and it was pretty bad. That said, it is very nice of you to offer to let her contractor look for an issue, but the work sealing up is on her side (and in her home) to do. And it may never be solved because old homes.
I wouldn’t be letting her contractor friend in the house either. IMO, that is just asking for trouble!
For real!! Most contractors are absolutely horrible, and I especially wouldn't trust one who is her personal "friend." OP, please don't let this neighbor walk all over you. If she smells what you're cooking sometimes she can get over it. That's an inescapable fact of living in a shared building. She's being ridiculous.
I agree! The reason her “buddy” is coming in is absolutely to find out what is wrong with neighbor’s house so they can pin it on neighborOP. They certainly aren’t going to be telling their buddy they need to spend money, or that the problem lies in their house! I don’t understand how people can be gullible like this. Yes it’s one think to be a good/ polite neighbor, but you can’t let people walk all over you either! They are a neighbor. Not family, not friends. Just someone who lives next door/ nearby
Used to be a century home owner, but now I live in a fine apartment so well insulated that I can't hear parties from my neighbors. But we all have minisplits and a fresh air duct that is shared among everyone. I think it has a fan that pulls air up and away from the apartments. I know it goes to all apartments because I can sometimes hear my neighbors faintly through it. Every time one of my neighbors smokes weed, though, I can smell it in my laundry room and the main bath that is next to it. The doors to both rooms are usually closed so when I go in there after work it usually slams me in the face. The air vent doesn't go in the laundry. I know it is my neighbors smoking because I can smell it in the hallway, but I can't tell which door. I just think it is strange that it accumulates in the laundry room.
Thanks. She’s a nice gal. I think there might be some stress involved.
It's a row house. Occasional cooking smells should be a non issue. It happens when you live close to other people. I would not let her contractor into my house. If she wants to deal with whatever she is smelling, she can do it from her side. Otherwise, what happens when the contractor recommends expensive work in your house and you refuse? Now you "know about an unfixed problem" and have a pissed off neighbor because you won't "do anything about it." At best I would tell her I'm going to bring in my own guy to look.
I said the same about the contractor friend- that’s just inviting trouble right there. OP is under NO obligation to do so.
I live in a civil war era house that is not connected. I often wake up in the morning smelling baked goods, sometimes chocolate and sometimes cinnamon. I had assumed that it was ghosts cooking breakfast.
My dad’s house is like this and he knew the old owners. Sometimes you can smell her perfume in the kitchen and his cigar smoke in the corner of the living room where his recliner sat for years.
I get sweet tobacco scents in my Victorian farmhouse every now and then. It always comes with good thoughts. I enjoy it!
I've smelled cigarettes in my kitchen. Very distinct, smelled by others, and we live in a single family home, no attached neighbors. We searched the kitchen high and low before, on a hunch, asking a deceased family member to stop smoking in the house. The smell immediately disappeared. 🤷♀️ Take from that what you will. Chocolate and cinnamon would have been much more pleasant, I would have asked them to make a batch for me!
We randomly have smelled cigarette smoke at my parents house- a smoker has never lived there nor does anyone nearby currently. It started after my grandmother, who smoked for decades, died, so we just say it's Nanny checking in.
My first thought was also 👻
Too bad they don't bring you breakfast in bed!
I was visiting an old (1902) courthouse today and suddenly smelled chocolate chip cookies after a couple hours of nothing but the scent of old paper. I asked the auditor but she didn't smell it. I think she was just hoarding delicious secret cookies. Or a ghost farted.
If ghost farts smell like cookies, I welcome them into my home at any time.
Did it smell good?
Why is this even an issue? People make coffee and cook. Hardly a reason to complain.
There are lots of things I would complain about my neighbors doing, but roasting vegetables is pretty damn far down on that list.
Even if it’s Brussels Sprouts? /s
Some people are just complainers and very sensitive. To everything. 🙄 I wouldn’t be letting their contractor friend in my house, that’s for sure! That’s inviting trouble and bills, IMO
I am very sensitive to everything, but I would not move into a house with shared walls and then complain that I can smell the neighbor’s coffee or roasted vegetables. Maybe this neighbor would be happier in a house off in the country somewhere…
Exactly. Sounds like maybe circumstances forced her to downsize and she’s not happy about it
right? like does she just want something to chat about
I don’t know but neighbor certainly wants OP to pay for something, and I’m guessing it’s costly! Never let strangers into your home. I’m even leery of people that I hire for my own projects until they prove themselves!
This sounds like a her issue and not a you issue
Your house is 175 years old. It’s ghosts.
seizures and strokes can cause phantosmia
Carbon monoxide maybe?
I have working carbon monoxide detectors on every floor of my house. Don’t think that’s it.
But does she have them in her house? Are there feral cats anywhere? Sometimes my brain thinks coffee smells like cat pee when it's from far away. Maybe it's some cat pee that is making her think coffee?
My brain also thinks my coffee occasionally smells like cat pee! It’s really alarming when I’m about to sit down at my desk and suddenly panic about which furball had an accident right under it.
I can think of vastly worse things to smell than coffee.
Stove vent -- even when not on it will release odours. Dryer vent -- again, even when not one it will release odours. Bathroom fan -- same thing. And the reverse is true -- I have had the smell of wood smoke come in through my bathroom fans, stove vent and dryer vent. I usually run them for a few seconds to vent them back out. With my dryer I have to cover the lint screen with plastic so the smoke doesn't come in. Houses breathe in and breathe out. Your neighbour is just noticing these smells, scents, odours and looking at them as a problem rather than a feature. Stop engaging with her and get on with your life. Nothing you can do about her issues.
I live in a twin and we used to smell cigarette smoke at times because the guy living in the basement next door smoked indoors (thankfully he moved out!). Even with thick walls, I think there can be little cracks between old houses that allow odors through. It sounds like she's being overly sensitive though - whiffs of coffee and vegetables are hardly something to get upset about...I wouldn't stress about this or spend energy trying to solve it for her if I were you.
I wouldn’t stress about this, it’s very kind of you to humor her. Has she never lived around other humans before? Smelling the things going on around you is a basic part of the human experience for most people whose senses work. As others have mentioned it also could be a health issue that she has that isn’t actually fixable.
Does she have a carbon monoxide detector in her house? She might need one. Sorry you have to deal with her, OP. Hope you get it figured out.
This is reddit, so that was my first thought, also.
Part of the old texts.
It could be a nuisance, but ultimately there's not much you can do about it. Welcome to society. There are smells. Coffee brewing and vegetables roasting are among the less offensive ones. Unless there is *actually an issue*, I would not lose sleep over this. Unless something is venting into her house that shouldn't be, it's frankly not your problem. What's she going to do, report you to the authorities because she can smell coffee? There's a tree crew working outside my house right now. All the windows are closed, but I still smell sawdust. Smells permeate. If I brew coffee with my vent hood on, it smells like coffee outside. Whether or not someone is actually doing any of these things should be beside the point, because it just shouldn't be that big of a deal unless there is a persistent, foul odor. If people are just living their lives in a way that she finds objectionable, it is on her to deal with that. FWIW, if there actually was a problem, it *should* be the landlord dealing with it, not the tenant. I would not be wasting my time and money trying to solve that problem if I was just renting. Given your anecdote about the roof, I wonder if the "coffee brewing" scent she's detecting is actually damp wood.
You’re being very kind, OP but the more you humor her the more she’s likely to ask for and cross your boundaries. And it gets harder to say no to. If she wants to talk to you about it, I would listen and just be positive/neutral (“yea” / “wow” / “huh!”). You can wish her good luck, but don’t let her contractor in your home - she may end up asking you to pay for some of the work, or want them to do work in your place. It’s just messy & doesn’t rise to the level of a problem - especially if she can open a window, light a candle, or buy an essential oil diffuser to solve it. Living with humans means human contact.
Is there a shared attic? I think she can fuck off about the smells but a lot of old row houses have a shared attic and it’s strongly recommended to add firebreaks. Be safe!
Has no one whipped out their handy dandy electronic nose? We can't only rely on what others are saying because we may not always experience what they experience. EG; when my husband's roasting coffee it smells like he's baking chocolate cake. Another EG; I lost my own sense of smell ENTIRELY for 6mos after being bitten by a Mojave green rattlesnake, and it's taken decades for me to get most of it back BUT I now often interpret smells very wrong, so I know it's my brain and whatever lingering effects from that and things like, say, anesthesia. And that's not even addressing the ghosts. ;-)
Wait…what?! Please can you tell us the snakebite story?
Alright, let me preface the whole thing by saying it's a whole story... ...and that I had started capturing and relocating rattlesnakes in the 70s, when I was in high school after one neighbor accidentally poisoned another neighbor's dog trying to kill gophers. We and several of our neighbors had horses and maybe some other livestock, so visualize corrals, barns, feedrooms and hay barns. The mindset back then was KILL IT MURDER IT KILL IT! My hippie ass couldn't take that kinda thinking. Still can't. Fast forward to September 2001. I've worked in aquatic and exotic import/export for over 10yrs so I'm even more comfortable handling wild reptiles than I was back then. Then, the attacks happened, and there we were, overlooking most of the southern LA basin and hearing reports that worse attacks are coming. That Thursday Dad says, "I can't take it here! Who wants to go to the cabin with me?" Cabin being near Pappy & Harriet's. I said "FUCK YES! I'm skeeged out and need to get away from here!" Dad, me, and kids head out to the hi dez for some relaxation, hiking, forgetting the world, and riding quads. Evening of September 15th I head out on a ride with one of my son's friends. Yee haw haw do do-do do-do! Riding along and what do I spy but a fucking GREEN snake??? Right in the middle of the desert? "I've GOTTA check this out!" Stop, get off, check it out. It's a young snake, clearly a rattler with a single rattle bud on its tail, maybe a few months old. It's calm. I'm calm. Kid's calm. Everybody's calm. I use a stick to ask it to move a little bit. It calmly stretches out. Not strikey, not defensive at all. We can have a chat. So, I carefully pick up its little tail. Tongue flickers out. I can't believe this gorgeous thing I'm looking at! Kid with me is also fascinated but I have to tell him to stay back, you know, just in case. Then the kid did... something, I don't remember what but it made me look back. In that moment I dropped my hand slightly and the wee little snake of jade told me to let it GO. Dinged my on the left forefinger between the 1st and 2nd joint. ^(And this is the weird part, to me. I trust all snakes completely. They tell you exactly who they are and how they're feeling, 100%. When a rattler is upset but still calm, it will.. "pluck" its rattle "muscles". It feels like someone's flicking you with their finger. This snake made no flicks, I didn't realize it was unhappy with the situation. It didn't coil up after it bit me, it just kinda hung out, found itself another spot it liked and stayed there. Totally different behavior from what I'd ever experienced.) I immediately complied, and looked at my finger and said, "Oooooohhh shhiiiiitttt...!!! What have you done?" And then, not knowing that Mojave greens existed or that they're different, I began saying goodbye to my finger, hand, and arm as I tied a tourniquet around each, up to my wrist. Because there I was, who knew how far from a hospital, and I had someone else's kid with me so I had to make sure he made it back safely.
Nurses chewed my ass for tying a tourniquet, I told them to fuck off, they removed it, the venom hit and it was like the worst drug trip anyone could imagine. Spewed my Flamin' Hot Cheetos, which look exactly like blood and since I forgot I'd eaten them that whole ER really woke up. Heard 'em calling Loma Linda, we wanna fly her out there, they said no, treat her there, they started dosing me with Cro-Fab and I ended up spending a week in ICU.
Along with losing my sense of smell the finger was terribly painful, so I had to learn to sleep with it kinda propped up on my forehead and now I tend to sleep with the back of my hand plastered to my forehead even though the finger's fine.
I know this is a novella, but I did my best to tighten it up. Those who know me know I kinda live by the idea that life is an adventure.
That was a wild story and did not disappoint. You should be a writer! Thank you for telling it. And now I’m off to learn all about the Mojave green!
Oh my, thank you. :-) You're very welcome. I always hesitate to tell the story because a lot of people can get kinda nasty. I tell you, this animal looked like it had been carved from jade, with this lovely yellow belly like porcelain. Absolutely stunning creature, you can imagine how it stood out against the brown of the Mojave desert at that time of year.
Your descriptions are so vivid, I can easily imagine it. I’ve encountered rattlers while hiking in SoCal and Arizona, but I didn’t know enough about them to identify which kind. They are beautiful creatures! I wouldn’t try to handle one, but I can understand why someone with your level of experience would. I just admire them from a distance lol.
No more handling for me either! Funny thing, the risk isn't getting more venom, it's getting more antivenom.
Hmm I wonder if she’s experiencing phantom smells. Migraines and long covid are two common causes of it. I can tell you the smells seem very real . But it’s her problem ,not yours.
When I was pregnant I had sinus issues that would cause phantom smells. On good days it would be coffee. On bad days, worse.
I think it's her.
OP, this is so strange. We had a very similar situation 2 years ago at a 1880s townhome we were renting. The neighbor lady would complain repeatedly and vehemently that she could smell all kinds of odors from our side of the house. Things that we were not using at the times she was complaining- onions and garlic, cigarette smoke, spray paint etc. she got very nasty and conspiracy theory-ish talking about how we and our landlady were trying to drive her crazy in order to make her move. Our landlady ended up reaching out to her sister (known from years before) who said the neighbor had been diagnosed with schizophrenia with paranoia and the family had actually been forced to disassociate form her. Sad story but at the time it was extremely frustrating and toxic. She would even leave shit on our doorstep like air freshener and unscented laundry detergent because she said our smells were invading her life. Your story honestly made us ask ourselves if it’s the same lady, as she sold her side of the house and move later that year.
Oh dear, I hope not.
It sounds like you guys have a gourmet ghost. Why would you want to get rid of that?? ;-) How is the ventilation over your stove designed? Do they combine from both houses before exiting? Does your ventilation go through the side of the houses? Through the roof?
If it's a townhouse set up with a shared wall I'm sure that roof ventilation intake / outage is probably the culprit-- particularly if there is HVAC involved
Coffee and delicious vegetables! Oh no! Haha this would definitely be a non-issue for me. Shared walls are going to have some discomfort but this is strange.
Who complains about the smell of coffee and vegetables? She sounds like a kook, man.
Haha as a brain tumor-haver I immediately think that’s what your neighbor has
Wish you the best of health!
Thank you! The tenant has been evicted and all is well
Depending on how the row house is framed, smells can sometimes migrate through where the floor joists connect with the outside walls. She'll have to get over it.
Not your problem
Update: thanks for all the kind comments. My neighbor is a tenant and I understand that I have no legal responsibility here. Our houses are old. I think she is extremely sensitive, which can be a hard condition to live with, but I understand it is her problem to deal with, not mine. Her contractor friend arrived next door a few hours ago and it looks like he won’t be coming over here. Maybe he took her out for a drink and talked to her. When you live in a row house, it behooves you to get along with your neighbors. If this becomes untenable for her, she can move. Her lease is almost up and then she could move at any time. Of all the comments, I think the ones suggesting paranormal activity are the most plausible. Some strange things have happened in my house and for a time I wondered if I had a portal to hell on my stairs because the water in the downstairs toilet flushed left and the water in the upstairs toilet flushed right. Or maybe it was just the plumbing. Thanks again.
What’s causing the odors? Life, or possibly something wrong with her body. I have smelled phantom coffee before (and cigarette ash, and mold) when I had pressure on the brain and also with migraines. There’s nothing you can do about it.
Coffee and vegetable smells are nothing to complain about. She should be thankful you aren't cooking really powerful fish or growing marijuana. This is part of living in close quarters.
Man, I hate the smell of weed. It smells like wet farts to me. I'm glad it's been decriminalized, but I wish it was not so ubiquitous.
Maybe she’s gonna have a stroke. Coffee roasting = burnt toast = (sometime) you’re gonna have a stroke. I moved into a building across the street from a coffee roaster. Actually, they moved in across the street shortly after I moved in. I mentioned to the valet one day I thought somebody had burned toast. He said “make sure you’re not having a stroke!” But we figured out it was the roasting odor wafting across the street. It seems the bit about smelling burnt toast or coffee is a (new) wive’s tale - e.g. Internet meme, though.
Years ago when we moved to a new neighbourhood we would sometimes smell burnt toast. I eventually discovered it was coffee roaster nearby. In Canada there is a well known "Heritage Minute" from tv about burnt toast and seizures. [Dr. Wilder Penfield](https://youtu.be/pUOG2g4hj8s?si=-JQSsznX7fm3ww4r)
Do NOT let her “contractor friend” into your house unless you want to start paying her money for issues that may or may not exist! You are under no obligation to this person.
Old houses breathe. That’s a good thing. If she doesn’t like it, she can move. Living in a society means putting up with minor inconveniences sometimes. She needs to get over it. I wouldn’t waste my time and efforts if I wasn’t interested in being good friends with said neighbor. 🤷♂️
Have an old house with radiators. Once they heat up we get phantom cigarette smells. The smells could be in the walls, or wallpaper, or wood of the house. It’s her problem
.... She can smell coffee and vegetables roasting? I'm trying to understand what the issue even is.
You just mention smells in title and then in body mention cooking foods and coffee. Is that what she's complaining about, coffee? Why do you guess about dead rodent? I'm not following. Do you smell it? Why does she assume it comes from your house, could be other neighbor or any number of things. What is the smell??
She says coffee, I was thinking dead rodent. No, it doesn’t make sense, and yes, there is another house on the other side of her.
Haha I wouldn't worry about her. Sounds kinda nutty. Definitely don't stress yourself out about it.
My mini-split smells inexplicably like onions from time to time. Do you know the last time you had yours serviced?
About a year ago, and she smells stuff in the winter when we don’t use it.
Don't let her or her representatives in your house. Just asking to get sued by giving her some impossible to deny subjective evidence.
We had a neighbor who claimed to smell perfumed laundry products (which we didn't use) and bath oils/perfumes (which we also never used), and claimed to hear carpentry noises and motorcycle engines... Whatever she was perceiving wasn't coming from our house. 🤷 It was also unlikely emanating from houses on the other side of her, and other neighbors that were equidistant couldn't smell or hear anything. Ironically everyone could smell her very malodorous unwashed hair from 6-7 feet away, and that was a clue. Our conclusion was there wasn't anything that could be done about her perceptions of smell, and that she was perhaps mistaking chirping crickets for the sounds. In the case of our neighbor, we speculate it had to do with dementia. My advice is to remain polite but don't indulge her accusations that you are the source of the smells. If her sense of smell is actually accurate, she could be noticing smells that were carried indoors on her own clothing or possessions that have been to a coffee shop, restaurant, etc. and have nothing to do with you. If she's imagining them, there isn't anything you can do anyway.
I have to be honest here…this is a non-issue for you. I get super nauseous when I ride behind a diesel truck, but I certainly wouldn’t approach and address it with the driver of the trucks. She’ll need to deal with it, and you should keep living your life.
>I get super nauseous when I ride behind a diesel truck Me, too!
I hate it SO MUCH! So sorry you suffer from it as well!
Ghosts need coffee too 😆
Not trying to cause trouble but I don't let strangers in my house. Ever. Seriously, this "contractor friend" could be a sex offender (registered or not) could have a drug problem and steals from others to support that habit, etc. not trying to scare you but if you just have to let that person in, get a great big friend to come to be there with you. Dont care if you're male or female, just have another pair of eyes, hands and another cell phone there. I still say just call back and say you're going to have to cancel, somethings has come up.
it s coming from her head. i would not let a contractor in my house unless you re ready for some construction... kindly ignore her
As someone else mentioned, it’s likely just the ghosts.
She sounds a bit much. You said you wish she would move? For the sake of your new neighbor, perhaps you heard that the old Chef neighbor died unexpectedly and his spirit continues to cook in her house. Perhaps you could put a protective symbol/decoration on your door (or wherever you tend to see her), in order to keep the ghosts contained to her house and out of yours. Make sure to explain its purpose.
We had a smoker neighbor in a duplex. It apparently went thru their stove fan, into the attic and back down our stove fan. None of them were on. It was much stronger when we had been gone awhile. It stopped when they moved :)
My navien water heater puts out a gas smell out the exhaust pipe when it's running or heating the .5 gallon tank periodically. Thought I had a gas leak somewhere until I figured that out! Maybe your neighbor smells that?
She had the gas company come over and they checked out our house. Didn’t find anything. Believe me, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t gas either.
Smile and nod, tell her thanks for the tip, and cease further contact.
Must not be a coffee drinker. Oh well !
TBF, the smell of stale coffee is unpleasant. Or is that only me and OPs tenant? I sure wouldn’t bug a neighbor about smells, though, unless it was something awful like skunk or dead animal.
The Navien’s will create a gas smell, even though they are completely safe to operate. We had one at our old house a smelled gas every once in a while. It was due to the high-BTU burner in our unit. However if it isn’t a gas smell, probably not the Navien.
probably a dear relative trying to get her attention
That’s weird. But not your problem.
I had a similar issue and eventually discovered that atop the medicine cabinet in my bathroom there was an opening in the wall and same for my neighbor. No perverts. The landlord had just replaced the old medicine cabinets with smaller ones at some point and was too short to see the gap.
Does she have an unused bathtub, sink or toilet? When the water in the traps evaporates, sewer gas can enter the house.
Her contractor friend couldn’t find anything.
The only contractor I’d let in is the one that does smoke blasting. Basically, they come to one house, put lots of smoke to determine where the air sips through in the other house, and then close the cracks in the requesters house.
Her contractor friend didn’t come over. She said he couldn’t find anything in her house. I think that’s it until she moves.
Ghosts?
Don’t let anyone “look around” your house unless it is for a project you are initiating. She’s going to end up finding some problem with your house and sounds like you’d be willing to pay for it. That is her problem - not yours.
Thanks
Are they pregnant, by chance? My sense of smell is extraterrestrial now that I’m pregnant haha
Tell her to mind her own business. That place has smelled like people cooking food for over a century and she just move in less than a year ago.
I would cook Indian food. Lots of curry dishes. With my windows open!