Donna Laferriere does not believe she is an unreasonable neighbour.
The 64-year-old lives on the fifth floor of the Skyline Apartments located on the corner of Giroux and Trout Lake Road in North Bay.
However, she is at a breaking point when dealing with marijuana smoke she has to cope with coming from her neighbour's room.
"I've been dealing with it since I moved in about five years ago, and it's just getting worse," she admits.
"My neighbour, he smokes a lot of marijuana and his friends come in and they smoke and it comes into my unit."
Laferriere has talked to her neighbour who she says has not been very receptive to her concerns. After discussions, Laferriere says her neighbour, who is also a senior, can be heard swearing to himself in his apartment after she complains.
"It's a difficult situation. I contacted the health unit and city hall and it's been for the last three days because his company's gone and you know, he gets violently ill after he goes on a bender like that with his friends and I can hear him through my walls hacking and getting sick."
Laferriere says last year, the landlord addressed the concern with some renovations. They repainted her walls, worked on sealing her door and purchased her an air purifier. However, it has not solved her problem.
"There are balconies and we're quite close," she said.
"He leaves his door open and when his door is opened and I shut my windows because he sits close to the door and it'll come right into my unit so I'm quite aware of that. So my windows are usually shut and it still comes in. It comes in through the door as the doors do not completely seal. Skyline has tried to seal the door."
The situation caught the attention of Donna's sister who wrote a letter to the editor last week about Donna's ordeal. "
"My sister still battles sleep interruptions from coughing, loses her balance, experienced brain fog, and tastes marijuana at the back of her throat and on her palate, thus ruining her enjoyment of her meals, and is afraid the second-hand cannabis smoke is making her sick from inhaling it, and she knows that all this is affecting her health and causing her to feel trapped and depressed," stated her sister Ronda Potts.
See related: Letter: Cannabis smoke from neighbouring apartment threatening senior's health
BJ Santavy, Vice President, Skyline Living, is aware of the Laferriere situation at one of their North Bay properties.
"The health, safety and well-being of our tenants are of the utmost importance to us, and we do our best to ensure all tenants and their guests feel comfortable within our properties," she told BayToday.
Santavy admits due to tenant confidentiality policies, she cannot discuss the details about the individual who lives in the smokey fifth-floor apartment.
She says they created a non-smoking policy in 2018, something Skyline implemented in all its properties in Canada.
"Since then, new tenants are required to sign an addendum to lease within a non-smoking residential community that prohibits them from smoking on the premises (this includes their unit, balcony or patio, indoor spaces/common areas, parking lot.)," she stated.
"We expect all our residents to comply with the policy, and tenants can file an incident report if they believe a neighbour is in breach of the policy. Breaches are subject to the normal disciplinary procedures as any other that interfere with a tenant's reasonable enjoyment, including contacting the tenant in question, sending a first warning and N5 Notice to End Tenancy, if it should come to that."
Laferriere says Skyline is looking at the option of moving her to another floor away from her smokey next-door neighbour.
"I just want to be comfortable in my unit and, you know, enjoy being here and enjoy the sunsets on the balcony and you know, just enjoy the greenery," she said.
