Current Renters
Are you tired of cigarette smoke in your apartment building? As a tenant, here is what you can do:
Write a letter to your building manager or landlord.
- Explain your problem and offer solutions.
- Keep copies of any correspondence.
Follow up by approaching your landlord to discuss the situation.
- Be positive, polite, and stick to the issue.
- Ask to work together to solve the problem instead of getting angry or yelling.
Offer solutions.
- Work with your landlord and offer to help think of or implement some solutions.
- Solutions could include conducting a tenant survey, holding a tenants' meeting, relocating to a different part of the building, or ending your lease early to find a smoke-free building.
Provide information.
- Give your landlord information on the dangers of being exposed to secondhand smoke.
- Explain the benefits of having a smoke-free building.
Emphasize that building owners can legally make their buildings smoke free.
- For HUD (Housing and Urban Development) units, point out that changing “House Rules” may be easier to accomplish than making a formal lease change.
Suggest that smoke-free units can be established.
- For current tenants, a smoke-free policy can be signed during each tenant's lease renewal
- New tenants can start off smoke-free.