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Has anyone had experience in identifying source of odours moving between apartments causing considerable distress- and in finding a solution as to how to stop the problem. Apart from residents sharing ideas and experimenting with short term solutions eg ‘no cooking’, can anyone recommend professionals with experience in this area. (Melbourne) That is, someone with the know how to examine the situation and the building and suggest what the next step might be.
Would appreciate hearing from anyone with similar problem and how you went about approaching the situation and whether you were able to come up with an acceptable solution.
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Is the odour emanating from your building or from another source?
If the odours are cooking odours (which you appeared to allude to) and if the cooking odours are emanating from cooking within a Lot then there is not much that you can do about it.
Various menus create their own temporary unique aromas and/or odours – some appeal to one group of gourmands and yet are unappealing to others. It would be unreasonable to ban a certain type of cooking merely because you did not personally like it.
However, if cooking smells are emanating from BBQs on terraces or balconies then there may be a By-law about this, particularly if the BBQ is smokey. Check your by-laws.
It is unlikely that an apartment cooking odour would be defined as an ‘offensive odour’.
An ‘offensive odour’ is defined as an odour that, due to its strength, nature, duration, character, quality, time of emission or some other circumstance,
- is harmful or likely to be harmful to a person who is outside the premises from which it is emitted
- interferes or is likely to interfere unreasonably with the comfort or rest of a person who is outside the premises from which it is emitted, or
- is prescribed by the regulations.
Check the venting and seals between apartments, including the spaces at the top of walls.
Also, some more cheaply build apartments have air conditioning that transfers air from one unit to the next.
As far as an expert goes, all I can suggest is that you Google building surveyors and ring around until you find one that has specific experience in this area.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
I’d be interested to hear what you arrive at Mary67 as we’re suffering the same thing in our apartment, except in our case it is particularly unpleasant smelling cigarette smoke.
The smell comes into all rooms of our unit. In fact, as I type now, I can smell it in our dining room, despite the Strata Manager sending an email to the resident yesterday (I’ll raise that issue in a more relevant topic) and I feel nauseous.
It’s totally unreasonable that residents should have to suffer this, it utterly affects our comfort and concentration on whatever it is we’re doing at the time.
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