How to deal with roommates who smoke?

To tell you the truth, if I were serious about not smoking, I really don’t think I’d move in with two smokers. Not to mention, the odds are good that their friends smoke. When these friends come over to visit, it’s going to REALLY be tough for you.

Obviously, option A would be to avoid this apartment if you could, since second hand smoke can have long term adverse health consequences. If you are set on living there, you can purchase an air purifier for your room to minimize the smell and smoke where you sleep and keep your stuff. I can’t really vouch for any one brand, but with a bit of research, you might find a good one.

I could not do it. Secondhand smoke is very dangerous, and I don’t know how you would avoid it there. Plus, you will hate how your clothes and apartment smell.

Where smokers live, the paint on the wall, the curtains, everything becomes saturated with cigarette smell.

If you’re going to do it get one of those air cleaners for your room. Your clothes will probably still always stink, but maybe not so bad.

If you don’t want to live in a place with smoke, you can’t live with roommates who smoke. There’s not really any way around that.

Or you could compromise, buy them some no smoke ashtrays and ask them to smoke outdoors on the porch. All living arrangements are compromises, they shouldn’t be subjecting you to their bad decisions. If you all want to live together, they will have to adjust just as you will.

You’re not asking them to stop, you’re asking them to respect their friends health.

I don’t think you have a right to expect them to smoke outdoors to accommodate your desire, especially when you are moving into their place and not the other way around. With multiple people in the same living arrangement, it often boils down to “majority rules” on issues and right now two people likely want to keep the status quo as is. You can ask for sure, but I really wouldn’t expect them to change.

The only thing you can do is block the smoke from getting into your room as much as you can. Adding weatherstripping to your door, using a draft blocker at the base of the door, and running an air purifier all the time are steps you can take to eliminate the smoke. You can also minimize the time you are at home to minimize the time you are exposed to second hand smoke. But in reality I’ve never heard of your living situation actually successfully working. I’ve seen it occur with pot smoking as that’s equal to or more common than cigarettes here in Canada, where two people in the house of tokers decided to stop smoking so they also banned it from happening inside the house… one of the instigators ended up moving out, and the other is back to smoking again.

See, I don’t think it’s reasonable to talk about “compromise” and “respect”—they’re inviting him to live there, and they smoke now. It’s not really fair for him to move in and then start telling them that they can’t smoke or that they have to change their smoking habits.

@dynamicduo, @cwilbur: yeah, that’s pretty much my situation.

I just think that if you’re friends it could be mentioned, it might not be successful but it can be brought up. Ideally, you should not move in.

As others have said you can get an air filter for your room and do your best to smoke-proof your door. But these will be stop-gap measures at best.

The smoke and yellow stains will gradually start bugging you until you will either have to move out or get angry with these folks and lose them as friends. The places a person can smoke with impunity these days are fewer and fewer, and their apartment may be close to the last place where they are free to indulge. The new guy, and the one in the minority, simply has no right to move in and then try to change the rules.

If you don’t smoke and you choose to live with smokers you might as well take up smoking yourself. You wouldn’t notice their smoke any longer or the smell on your clothes and possessions. The drawback, of course, is that cigarettes are really expensive, and of course there is that whole COPD thing.

My husband used to be a smoker. He quit almost twenty years ago so his lungs should be back to equal to a non-smoker’s lungs, right? Not so. He has COPD from the years he did smoke and it isn’t going away. In fact, as he ages it is only getting worse.

My suggestion is to tell your friends thanks but no, thanks. That way you can keep them as friends.

If you don’t want to live in a smokey environment, find some roomates who don’t smoke. There really is no way around it. If you move in with these people, you will sooner or later resent them, and they will probably return the sentiment. In order to keep your friendship with them, don’t move in with them.

How heavy of smokers are they, and how many other people come to the house that smoke?