Who's a handy person on here and knows how to solve this problem?

The only solution that I can think of is to move. I think that your intolerance to marijuana smoke is a valid reason to get out of your lease.

! can’t stand the smell of marijuana smoke. Smell like a skunk.

Good luck!

@gondwanalon unfortunately, and I probably should have said this in my original information, but I can’t just up and move. I don’t even know what I’m going to do eventually if I have to move because my income is nowhere near enough to get approved for an apartment and the only reason I was able to this time was because my sister was a cosigner on my lease for the first year. I have the money to pay the rent because I have money from our inheritance in the bank, but apparently that wasn’t enough to get approved. And I can tell you that my sister isn’t going to want to go through that step again so I’m kind of out of luck. Moving is not an option. And I don’t see why I should have to pay $1,200 plus moving in expenses because of somebody else’s ridiculous actions. That’s why I was asking if somebody handy knew about how I would put a filter on a ceiling then or some such thing. But thanks for your answer!

Contacting narcotics anonymous (NA), might help answer some of your questions.

Other than that I can only suggest getting a Hepa filter air purifier.

@RedDeerGuy1 I have a good air filter in my room, but it doesn’t get rid of the smell, although maybe it does somewhat, I don’t know. But why would contacting NA help?

@LifeQuestioner Sorry that I couldn’t help. I am tapped of positive actions.

The bad suggestions is to be a bad neighbor. (Loud music, religious singing).

Or give material on getting off weed, under their doors. Edit they would call a complaint to management again.

I’m sorry there is no soultion that I can think of.

I would ask your local cleric, or lawyer, for advice.

It would help if you did something legal that bothers them, and you would have leverage in making demands.

Ooh I have a suggestion. Go to the local legal weed dispenser and have them suggest a non, or less, rank weed that doesn’t bother you to your neighbors.

I’m sure that your neighbors are not deliberately harming you and would like to be good neighbors, if given the opportunity. I would totally help them to find the good stuff.

Is a win/win scenario.

@RedDeerGuy1 you don’t know my neighbors very well. And from what little I know about weed, apparently the less rank smelling stuff is more expensive so I doubt they’re going to go with that option. This woman stomps around day and night, dropping stuff on the floor late at night in the bedroom so of course I hear it when I’m trying to get to sleep, and I don’t think trying to talk to them more reason with them would work.

I do suspect that they are not buying their weed from a dispensary, which in our state is the only place you can legally buy it, but of course I have no proof of that.

@LifeQuestioner Ok. The next step is to buy a tent over your bed that can block the smell.

I would consider getting a go fund me account, or your church, to buy your neighbors the better weed.

Other than that you might have to accept that it is out of your control? Some problems have no soultion.

I take showers at 3am, to ease my panic attacks, and no one has complained in my building. I would consider stopping if it bothered my neighbors.

I would ask someone more qualified than us (cleric, priest, lawyer, local politician, weed salesman) . As it shouldn’t be up to you to find a solution. It is unreasonable for you to deal with this problem. I would try to find the positive In the problem. Maybe you can write to the local news media and tell your story.

@LifeQuestioner You could ask your local municipality to change the bylaws on using weed only in designated area’s. Like a outdoor smoking room.

It would be worth the effort as you are probably not the only one effected by pot smoke.

You can even found a society for the safe consumption of Marijuana? I recommend searching for a group that exists before committing to found a society.

It may be possible to pay your rent into escrow until the issue is resolved. I’m not a lawyer, the laws vary by location and situation but generally speaking you’re entitled to the quiet enjoyment of your space. If the landlord is unable to accommodate that need (perhaps with some changes to the HVAC ducting if they’re going to allow smoking), then it’s possible that they’re not going to get your rent check until they are able to do so. I’d put my concerns in writing. Explain the next letter will be from an attorney if they’re not able to accommodate your need to breathe uncontaminated air due to your medical conditions. Then go speak with an attorney in your area if they refuse.

I did a search: is there free legal help for apartment renters

I used Bing, but Google would have similar results if you prefer it.

There’s also Legal Aid in most states/cities. If it were me, I would try to get some answers regarding your issue. Hope this helps.

A couple options. First, talk to your neighbors. Ask if they can avoid smoking pot all the time or at least at night. I don’t give this one much hope but it would be dealing with the issue as a neighbor might who had a noise complaint.

Another thing you might try is getting a humidifier. Putting moisture in the air may help knock down the smell some. You could also put something like Vick’s Vapo-rub into the water of the humidifier to get a smell into the air that would overpower the pot smell and could help you as well.

Another option, which would look a bit strange, would be to tape some foam over the air vent where you think the smell is coming from your upstairs neighbor.

This is a little tough to answer without knowing the space. If there is an open air flow from that space to yours and is in the ceiling, then possibly a fan that creates an airflow that keeps the scent from coming in your space.
A fan directed as close as possible to create positive airflow may help. A muffin fan mounted directly on that vent would be ideal, yet may not be easy to mount.

There is just no good way to avoid weed smell when it’s that close. Honestly, this is not your biggest problem. My advice is to rectify the other issue you have about not being able to move. Someday, you will likely have to so you already need to be taking steps to get that resolved. I’m not sure what you do for a living or where you reside, but you may need to look into alternative arrangements in one or both of those areas. With apartments, if the weed smell gets resolved, something else you can’t tolerate will just take its place. Kids that jump up and down all night in the apartment above you, loud stereo, pervy neighbor, or fill in the blank. That’s just apartment life.

Other than a PHREND specifically made for that, most people use a less offensive but strong smell like incense.
Maybe a medical oxygen tent?

You will likely smell it, regardless of what you do.

I have a couple suggestions though.
You can put pleasant smelling dryer sheets in your vents that have changeable filters. That is something that we do, when there are wildfires.

Another possible help, would be an air purifier or something similar. Something that sucks room air in, filters it and returns it to the room.

Incense, and candles are fire hazards. They should help, just be careful.

Sadly. I believe that completely concealing the odor is impossible.
Weed is in the process of being legalized. It’s inevitably now.
People are going to have to get used to seeing/smelling it everywhere.

I have one hail marry. IF you ever end up talking with the problem tenants, you could ask them to smoke flavored vapes. That would still smell, just not like weed.

I’m in a similar situation, as far as being limited in places I can realistically afford. The only real solution I ever have had regarding problem neighbors, is to piss them off. I call it an “asshole fight.” When we see, who can be the biggest asshole.

I’m sorry you’re in this situation. I hope you can make the best of it.

Lots of comments to address here, but a few general things first to all who have commented before and anybody else who might have advice. And I say this as a reasonable person who is always willing to reconcile with people, but in this case, there is no talking to the other residents in my building. They all know each other for the most part and they all have decided that I am the enemy and they do everything they can to make my life difficult, although that has eased up slightly recently. To try and talk to them would only be interpreted as my further harassing them and they would complain to the rental office in that regard.

Secondly, many people have suggested incense, but if you know anything about cats, and I have two, that is a bad idea. Incense, Glade plugins, any of that stuff can be harmful to cats so that is off the table.

@seawulf575 I really like your idea of a humidifier. I actually ordered one from Amazon when I had covid but it’s a bit of a process and I guess I need to get around to seeing how exactly it works and then put that into play. Thank you for the suggestion as well as to somebody else further up in the thread who had also suggested that. I don’t know about the foam over the vent though. It might be okay in the winter because I like my bedroom cooler when I sleep anyway, but in the summer and late spring, that would have to come off because I need my room to benefit from the air conditioning or I won’t be able to sleep. I live in a part of the world where it gets very humid and often very hot as well even at night, so that air conditioning is a must.

@Forever_Free the vent is in the ceiling and isn’t really a very big one, so I don’t know how I would have the fan close enough to do any good, but thanks for the suggestion.

@Blackwater_Park yes, thanks for stating the obvious and reminding me of the thing that sometimes keeps me up at night since I can’t figure out how to resolve it. With my health, I can’t work a full-time job and would have to miss so much time for my doctor’s appointments that I would end up hurting my income anyway. And if I work a full-time job, I lose the health insurance I have now which is due to my low income. And, even when I worked a full-time job, it would not have been enough to satisfy the requirements of today’s typical rental office, where they expect you to have an income which is two and a half times the monthly rent. One thing I have considered is that I may eventually have to go with an individual person renting a place, although even that fills me with trepidation because I did that one time and it was not a good experience. Anyway, I can only solve one problem at a time and this one will crop up for a couple years so I can’t spend every day stressing about it, as crazy as that may seem to some people. I would kill myself with stress long before I got to that point. I’ve given myself permission to not worry about it too much until I get within a year of when I will have to move. Oh, and I’ve dealt with some of the other problems you’ve mentioned in the past as a renter, and all those I have fairly easy fixes for, but this one I am somewhat defeated on, which is why I am on here asking for advice.

@MrGrimm888 I have a air purifier in the room and that does seem to help some but not completely. I’m sorry you’re in the same boat as I am, and take this in the manner of the lighthearted suggestion it is, since I don’t know your situation or really even know you, but perhaps we should team up and live together, lol! I am trying to make the best of it, and I do feel like there is a solution, but I just haven’t stumbled on it yet. When I am in my main room, things have improved from the other neighbor because I’ve now at it weather stripping to my door, along with one of those puffy things people put across the bottom of their door to keep out drafts. Not only does that help with the smell, but it also cuts down on noise and the drafts we get from the outside lobby door which is only one flight down. So it’s a win win win situation! This is tougher though because it involves a vent. I actually found, as opposed to dryer sheets, and I only buy unscented ones anyway, some HEPA filter sheets that you can put in your vent, but looking at how the vent is in the ceiling, and that it seems to have been painted over, I’m not sure I would be able to remove it to do so. I have thought about going to the rental office and saying, look, since you’re obviously not doing anything else to solve the problem, can you send one of your maintenance people around to help me get this vent off the ceiling and put this filter in? And of course, I would probably phrase it more nicely than that, but I would hope that that would be the least of what they could do for me since they won’t enforce the terms of their lease.

If you don’t want to put foam over the vent, see if you can get a vent filter that fits that size. They make some that are charcoal impregnated. The charcoal is designed to take odors out. I suggested a foam merely because you can cut it to size and it will still allow some air flow through, but the foam may gather some of the odors from the pot.

^^ exactly my thoughts too. Simply block it may help too.

@seawulf575 the ones I’ve seen on Amazon, you can cut down to size and they are HEPA filters so I would think that would help remove the odor.

I have thought about going to the rental office and saying, look, since you’re obviously not doing anything else to solve the problem, can you send one of your maintenance people around to help me get this vent off the ceiling and put this filter in? And of course, I would probably phrase it more nicely than that, but I would hope that that would be the least of what they could do for me since they won’t enforce the terms of their lease.

This seems like the most reasonable and likely to happen. If you discuss it with them and they’re not amenable to that solution, you can speak to Legal Aid or a renters’ group of attorneys and at least ask them what a solution could be. Legal Aid is free, but it may take a month or so for them to respond to your request for assistance. I would imageine there are renters’ lawyers who are, at minimum, on a sliding scale.