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Smoke-free apartments
Greetings,
My landlord is renting out the apartment below mine. Can I ask her to include a clause that forbids smoking indoors? I have an infant baby and I do not want to have cigarette smoke coming through the floor (it's an old maison de maitre and the previous renter smoked very occasionally but it came through the floor). I mentioned it to her and she never thought to add this clause to her contracts. I just want to check if this is legal?
Regards,
New Mom in BXL
It's perfectly legal for your landlord to insist on a non smoking tenant and to add that clause to the agreement. I have a temporary place on a 3 month let here in Belgium and it's right there in the contract.
I also have a place rented out and have a clause saying that if they smoke in the place, they pay for complete redecoration when they leave, but it's not in Belgium.
Damn I hate smokers! (But only when they are smoking) ;-)
Of course you can ask her to include a clause that forbids smoking indoors.
And, if she agrees to do so and a potential renter accepts it, it will be totally legal.
HOWEVER, she is under no obligation to do so and may not wish to limit her pool of potential tenants when there is no obvious benefit to her.
AND, what happens if a tenant accepts the restriction but still smokes? Or has a visitor who smokes? By the time you can do anything about it, the smoke will have come through the floor and what if the tenant then denies smoking?
Hi whilst I appreciate your concern and know for sure there's a link between smoking and child health. I have to say that an occasional smell of smoke coming up through the floor whilst not pleasant isn't going to be that injurious to you or for your infants health. I'm not a smoker and I used to work in child health so I do appreciate what damage smoking does. However that's around infants constantly in the same room as they are sleeping.
Yes you can ask her but if it's not included and the next tenant do smoke don't get anxious it I guess what I'm saying. They after all will have to put up with the noise from a young infant and even if your a super mother babies do make noise sometimes it's how they communicate.
Why the hell should the OP have to put up with a smell that is not "that" injurious to her infants health? And how does the fact a baby makes baby noises justify and health risk from the neighbour below?
Mikek1300gt. do you need to be so rude? What I said was that a small exposure wasn't a serious health hazard such as smoking in a house when you have an infant is. I have seen babies with serious chest issue due to smoke exposure from parents who smoked. I have seen babies who suffered SID and the families after and yes that can also be related to parental smoking. I wasn't diminishing the situation merely trying to reassure the questioner that a tiny amount may not be so bad. I'm sure the risk from say CO2 from cars is worse in some part of town.
I seriously doubt the amount of smoke that seeps between apartments is likely to have serious and very negative health consequences in the case under discussion
I was trying to also point out that we all have thing that our neighbours find irritating like noise from children or I could have said TV or dogs.
I'm not a smoker I have seen the health consequences of smoking up close in hospital in adults and children.
However I also realise that it's an addiction many people find it hard to live with out. I was trying help the situation by suggesting even if a smoker is living there it may not be negative in this case. Let's face it the landlord can let the apartment to anyone they choose.
