A Victim of Woodsmoke Pollution

- by Shirley Brandie, WoodBurnerSmoke.net

In 2000, we bought a home to enjoy our retire­ment in. It was per­fect for us! Every­thing on one floor, a sur­round­ing deck, and a large expanse of lawn. Lit­tle did we know that, in 2002, our lives would be changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly! Begin­ning in 2002, our home became sur­round­ed and infil­trat­ed by wood smoke from our neigh­bour. There was no help in get­ting this smoke stopped. Every­where we turned we received sym­pa­thy but were told there was noth­ing they could do.

We were told that it was an issue to be dealt with at the munic­i­pal lev­el. Approach­ing the munic­i­pal­i­ty and ask­ing for help gave us more sym­pa­thy but no action. 

The peo­ple we talked with said it was a “civ­il mat­ter.” We called the Build­ing Inspec­tor repeat­ed­ly about the height of the chim­ney and were told it met code.

We spoke, both in per­son and by tele­phone, to the neigh­bours telling them that the smoke was get­ting into our house and mak­ing life almost unbear­able. The response was to “keep your win­dows closed.” We tried to explain that the smoke gets in through the fur­nace intake, spaces under doors, etc. They then said they would not stop burn­ing, would burn what they want and to sue them if we didn’t like it… which we final­ly end­ed up doing. We obtained a tem­po­rary court injunc­tion in May of 2005. Tri­al is pending. 

We approached our local coun­cil and they decid­ed that the chim­ney need­ed to be raised and thought that would solve the prob­lem. The chim­ney was raised, but the prob­lem con­tin­ued as the burn­ing increased and the smoke bil­lowed out day and night. There was no escap­ing the smoke and the stench. Many nights I would sleep with my head under the sheets hop­ing to escape the irri­tants of the smoke. I had burn­ing eyes, a con­tin­u­al sore throat and nasal irri­ta­tion that led to many sinus headaches and infections.

The brick chim­ney was orig­i­nal­ly an out­door bar­beque, that I nev­er saw used. He added what I like to call a “plas­tic room” around it and attached it to the side of the house. The plas­tic room was made of mate­ri­als, he told the press, that he obtained from a green­house that was being rebuilt. The roof, also, is made of some type of cor­ru­gat­ed plas­tic. The plas­tic room remains to this day. He then decid­ed to add a wood stove instead and had it built in the far cor­ner of the plas­tic room. This chim­ney pipe was too short and the coun­cil, once again, dealt with him and he raised it by about 5 feet. They had him replace the chim­ney cap, hop­ing it would deflect the smoke away. It didn’t. Per­haps he was upset about this as he removed the cap the next day and burned up a storm. The cap was lat­er put back on.

Mate­ri­als were stored in the yard in var­i­ous places. Most were par­tial­ly cov­ered but some piles were just thrown togeth­er. These piles con­tained treat­ed wood, ply­wood, red barn wood, plas­tics, and scraps. The smoke was nau­se­at­ing and the colour of the smoke var­ied by what was being burned. I knew then that we would have to do something!

I can tell you first-hand what it is like when one is forced to deal with a smoke issue, as I have lived through it. I can tell you that the stench per­me­ates your entire home, your cloth­ing, your hair, and you can even taste it. Expo­sure to the smoke was extreme­ly uncom­fort­able and caused burn­ing eyes, dry throat, irri­ta­tion of the nasal pas­sages and headaches. When the smoke stopped, so did the symp­toms. There was no relief by open­ing win­dows because the acrid smells were like a fog cov­er­ing our house. Buy­ing expen­sive air clean­ers did noth­ing to remove the odours. There was no enjoy­ing the deck and yard as long as the wood burn­ing stove was in operation.

As there was no provin­cial or munic­i­pal author­i­ty to whom we could turn to for help, we were forced to resort to the courts. In order to get the smell of the wood smoke out of the house, we removed and replaced the car­pet­ing, duct­work, the fur­nace and air con­di­tion­ing unit, and cleaned all sur­faces includ­ing the walls. Mat­tress­es and pil­lows were dis­card­ed as they smelled of wood smoke. It was an expen­sive project. I can tell you the fatigue my hus­band felt after work­ing all day and then going to our house until near mid­night day after day to work on the renovations.

We were for­tu­nate enough to have the means to seek legal help. Remem­ber that there was no provin­cial or munic­i­pal author­i­ty which we could turn to for help. What would hap­pen to those that can­not afford legal help? Would they be forced to move out of their homes? Could they afford to do that? Would they be able to sell their home when a poten­tial buy­er saw or smelled the smoke? Or, would they have to remain in their homes with their chil­dren and become sick? It’s a thought that is very dis­turb­ing to me. I think it is high time that our munic­i­pal­i­ties give some thought to ban­ning all wood burn­ing in res­i­den­tial areas. I fail to see how the pub­lic inter­est is served by per­mit­ting the unnec­es­sary foul­ing of the air we all have the need to breathe.

To those of you that think this kind of thing could nev­er hap­pen to you, think again! It can hap­pen almost overnight and not one fam­i­ly is guar­an­teed that they won’t end up in the same posi­tion as we did. Many munic­i­pal­i­ties have a “no out­door burn­ing” bylaw, yet the smoke from indoor burn­ing is released into the air and per­me­ates through­out neigh­bour­hoods and gets into neigh­bours’ homes. There is no escap­ing it, inside or out. Where is the help for the victims?

The vic­tims of smoke are a major­i­ty. The burn­ers are not. Why is it so dif­fi­cult to ban wood burn­ing in res­i­den­tial areas? There is no smok­ing in pub­lic places now, yet the smoke from wood burn­ing is far more dan­ger­ous and trav­els for miles, expos­ing every­one to its dan­ger­ous tox­ins. Does this make sense to any­one? Those munic­i­pal­i­ties that feel that a bylaw telling peo­ple what they can burn in their fire­places and wood stoves is a good one are dead wrong.