› Flat Chat Strata Forum › Smoke gets in your eyes › Smoked out of home › Current Page
Drew said:
If it is not against a bylaw then it is not against a bylaw.
If smoking is not against the law then it is not against the law.
I agree with 95 percent of what you say but there are always circumstances that differ – exceptions that prove the rule, if you like.
The law is the law, as you say but the law is never as simple as it seems. For instance, if you live in strata and you have permission to have a pet under the terms of the by-laws, you are not breaking a by-law if you have one . But if that pet causes a health problem for another resident then you could be ordered to remove it even though it is there legally:
151 Order relating to animal kept in accordance with
by-laws
(1) An Adjudicator may make one of the following orders if the
Adjudicator considers that an animal kept on a lot or the common property in
accordance with the by-laws causes a nuisance or hazard to the owner or an
occupier of another lot or unreasonably interferes with the use and enjoyment
of another lot or of the common property:
(a) an order that the person keeping the animal cause the animal to be
removed from the parcel within a specified time, and to be kept away from the
parcel,
(b) an order that the person keeping the animal take, within a time
specified in the order, such action so specified as, in the opinion of the
Adjudicator, will terminate the nuisance, hazard or unreasonable
interference.
We're talking about a guy who has cancer and has been confined to his home. There aren't a lot of options open to him and a little human decency from his neighbours (for what we can assume will be a limited time) wouldn't go amiss.
Also the question of whether or not a by-law is in place neatly skips the issue of whther or not one SHOULD be in place. The building I live in doesn't allow air-conditioning because it is 'environmentally friendly' and designed to be cooled by having airflow through open windows. The original chairman was a caveman who only knew how to cook on fire so he blocked any attempts to interpret the by-laws in any way that suggested they didn't allow barbecues (they don't allow smoke on common property). He would barbecue meat, fish and seafood five nights a week – after first burning off the fat from the previous cook-out. After he'd been sacked as chairman he even managed to smoke out the room in the next-door apartment where a meeting was being held to discuss the issue of barbecues (TRUE!!). But because of his lead, gradually more and more barbecues appeared until about a quarter of the balconies in this building have them. That means the by-law that should, logically, have been in place from day one – if you HAVE to keep your windows open in summer to stay cool you should have some protection from smoke and fumes – will never be enacted. By the way, there are plenty of buildings in Sydney that do have air conditioning but don't allow barbecues.
The problem isn't even the majority of barbecue owners. I'd say out of all the barbecues that there are my building, most get used once a month in Summer, if that. But allowing them to operate means that there are a couple of barbecue maniacs who cook almost every night, never clean their barbecues and can stink out 20 or 30 apartments with smoke and smell in one go (I wonder if there's a connection between cooking and eating the cheapest meat and sausages and having no regard for your neighbours).
Your admirable tolerance and give and take would be tested by coming home after an eveing out to find the stink of prawns and chorizo clinging to your walls becasue you'd been foolish enough to leave your window open to keep the place cool.
The telling point for me is the one thing that balcony smokers and barbecue cooks have in common – they close their doors so the smoke and smell doesn't get in to their flats (usually because of pressure from their partners). So it's not that there's no problem – it that they want to make sure that problem is not theirs. And by the way, anyone who says banning barbecues will reduce rents is just clutching at straws. We own a rental property and just to be consistent, insist that our tenants can't have barbecues. We have never had any trouble letting it and one guy who didn't read the small print just shrugged his shoulders and dumped the barbie. Live and let live – I agree – but it's time Sydneysiders grew up and accepted that give and take might mean giving up barbecues when they get all the other benefits of living in apartments.