Smell from next door coming through walls?

[Psyclist]

Evening all and hope you all had a nice time over the last couple of days.

We've been up to stay at my inlaws since the day before Xmas eve and just returned this morning as my family came to visit us today. When we arrive home this morning, our hallway was stinking of stale smoke.

Bearing in mind neither me nor my wife smoke, and we have a 2 year old son, and as much of a handful as he is, I doubt very much he's having sneaky B&Hs in his bedroom while hanging out of his window just yet.

We live in a 3-bed Semi and as you're looking at the house, we're on the right hand side of the connection and we know our neighbours to whom we are joined smoke heavily.

We have only really noticed the smell appearing over the last year of living here and it's always been confined to the cupboard under the stairs which run up the connecting wall. Thing is though, our living room backs onto their living room too but there's never any smell there or the bedroom upstairs which also shares the connecting wall, it was always just the cupboard, but not it seems to be the hall and staircase too.

It's strong enough to the point where I feel like it's giving me a headache purely because it smells like my Dad's house. My Dad smokes heavily, and I always leave his house with a (literally) stinking headache. Which leads me onto saying I know it's none of my clothes after visiting my Dad's house because I haven't visited my Dad's house for over 3 months and I'm never there for more than half an hour or so anyway. So although you can smell when I've been to my dad's house, the smell never really holds in my clothes so it has to be coming from somewhere and my heavy smoking neighbours are just too obvious for it not to be coming from there, but how is it getting through the walls and what can I do about it?

 

[HERTS P&D]

Go into the understairs cupboard and check for draughts, do this this a naked fame, eg a lit candle. Then get out the foam filler.

Andy

 

[^woody^]

Odours will normally be getting through gaps around timber joists built into the party wall - ground floor or more likely first floor, and settling in the cupboard due to lack of air circulation

 

[stevethejoiner]

Does not say a lot for fire safety.

Do you have suspended timber ground floors? If so through draft from air bricks could be bringing the smoke through from their side and up between floorboards and skirting.

As WOODY and HERTSDRAINAGE2010 say, check for drafts.

 

[Psyclist]

Hi Chaps and thanks for the advice so far.

The ground floor is solid concrete so shouldn't be coming through the floor. From what you're saying it sounds to me like it could be coming through where the support timbers for the stairs go into the wall because their staircase is on the other side of the wall and will probably be the same place so there'll likely be gaps around where the timbers are fixed in the wall.

We had considered removing the cupboard altogether and just having some coat hooks under the stairs, but the smell has put us off doing that so far because we don't want the entire hallway to stink of smoke.

Haven't had a check to see if I can see where the draught is coming through yet though coz need to get rid of the little'un so I can clear the cupboard out and get in for a look without him getting in the way. Will let you know how I get on though.