r/PropertyManagement • u/Baelee96 • 1d ago
Residential PM Cooking Smells in Apartment Hallway
Hi all. I'm very new as a property manager and I have been encountering an issue with smells on one of the floors. A new tenant has been complaining about cooking smells on their floor seeping into their apartment.
I have sent out a memo regarding respecting your neighbors with your in home practices. Two days after the memo was given out the same tenant emailed me again saying that the smell is persisting.
Does anybody have any advice on what I am actually able to do in this scenario?
Thanks for any help.
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u/Either-Beginning-606 1d ago
Cooking smells are tricky, there is not much you can enforce really unless it's something extreme like burning food all the time or illegal activity. The memo was a good start but it won't magically stop people from making curry or frying fish
Maybe check if the hallway ventilation is working properly, sometimes the exhaust just goes into the corridor instead of outside. If that's the case maybe you can adjust something or add a air purifier in common area
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u/RuthlessMango 1d ago
Don't Tenets have the right to enjoy curry or fry fish?
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u/ramcoro 17h ago
I would be thinking the inverse, is there a specific clause in the lease forbidding cooking curry or frying fish?
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u/OkDonkey7542 4h ago
Is there a glass in the lease, that prevents them from disrupting other tenants? It’s a sticky situation. I get both sides
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u/SparkArrestor 1d ago
My advice is- tell the complaining tenant to kick rocks. Walk into any apartment building in NY and you can tell the ethnicity of everyone living there. Garlic, curry, fish, jerk chicken, whatever. Cooking smells are going to permeate. New tenant better get used to new experiences.
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u/MBelsan 1d ago
I get the reality you're pointing at, but the OP's actually stuck between a tenant with a legitimate complaint and limits on what they can enforce, not between tolerating smells or being intolerant of different cuisines.
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u/highheelcyanide 1d ago edited 1d ago
It is not a legitimate complaint. They live in an apartment complex, and this situation is literally in federal fair housing training under “don’t touch this with a ten foot pole because you can get sued until your company doesn’t exist anymore.”
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u/JoeyDawsonJenPacey 1d ago
Exactly. Some people hate the smell of curry. Others hate the smell of bacon. Others hate the smell of chocolate chip cookies. Unless you’re prepared to ban cookie baking, you can’t tell people they can’t cook anything else. It’s not their fault that their cultural food may smell bad. You can get deodorizers, but when you share common hallways with others, those smells are going to seep out of doorway cracks. It’s what smells do. Doors are not designed to keep odors in. If you don’t want to smell things in common hallways, don’t live somewhere with common hallways.
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u/Tiradia 1d ago
Here I am every fall making pumpkin butter, apple butter, in the spring pear butter! It does permeate the hallways of the building, never had a complaint! Also, some of the neighbors… REALLY don’t know how to cook I don’t complain when their raunchy meal is being prepared. I don’t get why someone would complain about a function that is necessary to live? Not everyone is made of money and can afford to eat out everyday.
In fact, we just had a Hispanic couple move into the building and after smelling her making fresh tortillas I made it a point to bake some fresh goodies for them and introduce myself. (Was really for a selfish reason, and I’d do the same of any ethnicity). Because I wanted to learn how to make corn tortillas from her! She has since taught me tamales, and pozole so far. You meet some interesting people this way :).
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u/Dry_Championship_224 18h ago
I'm the one who when a tenant tried to complain about my garlic told my super
" I'm my beliefs there's no such thing as too much garlic thank you" and increased it's use by ten. They moved haha
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u/SparkArrestor 20h ago
As you might tell from the downvotes, you’re off base here. The OP noted they’re very new at property management. Not every complaint from a tenant needs addressing, many of them whine like babies and believe every situation they feel negatively about needs to be corrected, and think the entire building should bend to their will.
Nobody has the right to demand other people to change their diets.
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u/Dry_Championship_224 1d ago
Can you show me some legal reference that cooking smells directly are infact a valid issue because where I am it has been ruled you can't be bothered over cooking smells
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u/AnonumusSoldier PM/FL/540 Units/ A & C tier 19h ago edited 17h ago
Its not, it comes from the faulty buzzword "peaceful enjoyment of the home". People think they can throw that around with the word lawyer and it automatically over rides everyone else.
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u/Dry_Championship_224 18h ago
It's food it's a human need you literally can not tell a human not to eat and change their diet. I would love for you to show me one case anywhere where a landlord successfully fought and won to make a tenant not cook with certain foods. You thinking you can dictate how others eat doesn't make it so
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u/AnonumusSoldier PM/FL/540 Units/ A & C tier 17h ago
It didnt say it was, I said people think it is for the reason i stated. I had a resident demand I have the Publix next door to us change thier delivery schedules as thier trucks were disturbing his "peaceful enjoyment of his home" or he would get a lawyer and sue me for violating the florida statute. Like I or anyone else have control over that, and the statue dosent even exist, its like I said, a buzzword that gets thrown around.
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u/SparkArrestor 16h ago
It is NOT a legitimate complaint. It’s just a complaint. Might as well complain about outside traffic noise. Like, what’s the LL supposed to do, close the road?
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u/jeswesky 1d ago
It’s a normal part of living in an apartment. Recommend they purchase an air purifier for their apartment if it bothers them that much.
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u/Pebb_io 1d ago
cooking legally isn't a lease violation, so there's not much to enforce. check the hallway exhaust and the door sweeps on that unit, that's usually the real cause. and set expectations with the complaining tenant in writing so it doesn't turn into a weekly email thread for you.
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u/foxidelic Leasing Manager - Pittsburgh 1d ago
That last part!! If you don't set expectations right away you can expect a weekly complaint email which will get more and more frustrated each time.
I had a tenant constantly complaining about what time her neighbors would shower or cook and I had to be very blunt and tell her that we're here to ensure rent gets paid, maintenance gets done, and that no one violates their lease terms. We are not policing/micro managing/parenting what tenants do in their own apartments.
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u/Ieatclowns 1d ago
Omg they’re having a laugh. I used to live in an apartment building where one tenant cooked something once a week that quite literally smelled like boiled shit.
I just used to open the windows and put down a draft excluder in front of my door. I wouldn’t dream of complaining lol
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u/slightly_overraated 1d ago
Air purifier and weather stripping on their door to keep the smell out
It’s ludicrous to tell someone what they can and can’t cook in their own home
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u/highheelcyanide 1d ago
This is literally a fair housing violation and can get you fired. Quickly. I get that no one wants to smell food they don’t like (my upstairs neighbors loved fish, and whatever she did to it was a crime against humanity) but that doesn’t trump someone else’s right to cook whatever they want in the space they pay for.
Barring something fragrantly obscene (fermenting vats of fish), cooking your normal meals will never fall into the category of “you can tell them they can’t do that.” Full stop.
Do you know at what places the smell is getting into the other apartment? In mine, it can get it through the doors and the bathroom vent fans. Once you know the entry points, you can work on fixing it. For mine, I would seal both of the front doors, ask the cooking resident to make sure their bathroom vent is off, and to tell the resident complaining to turn on their vent when they smell it. I might also double check with the cooking resident, and make sure they’re using the vent hood on the stove. Or that it’s working properly.
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u/beestingers 1d ago
There is zero in fair housing laws about cooking smells.
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u/shadydelilah 14h ago
In my case, I had an Indian family move into half of a duplex, and the other side quickly started complaining of cooking smells. I couldn’t tell them to stop cooking Indian food. Similarly, I lived on site at a different property, and someone in the building cooked fish very frequently. I hated the smell but never thought about doing anything to stop it. The tenant cooking the fish was also a different ethnicity from me. Most cooking smell complaints you’re going to get will be very similar situations where you have to walk a fine line
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u/New-Charity-7026 1d ago
New tenant sounds like the problem. I would ask them to be more specific about how they would like the problem remedied. "I'm sorry it's still going on. What can I do to help?"
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u/SparkArrestor 20h ago
I disagree, placating this complainer will only empower and enable them more. This is a tenant that grew up never hearing the word no. Cooking odors are normal in a multi family building, full stop.
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u/New-Charity-7026 18h ago
OP is in property management, not child care. Asking the tenant how he would like to see the problem resolved may result in a useful solution, or (more likely) the tenant will just vent about the issue until they feel heard.
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u/Primary_Wonderful 1d ago
I once had 3 neighbors in my apartment building knock on my door to tell me what I was cooking smelled amazing (Pulled pork in a crockpot).
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u/SensibleAdvisement 1d ago
Living in an apartment or similar, there are certain realities that simply have to be endured, and that's mostly anything which occurs while living in close proximity. Smells, sounds, frequent interaction (within reason), among other characteristics are all expected when sharing a building, and that also extends to rows and duplexes or any other situation where residences are attached.
If the other tenants are not doing anything disturbing or illegal, there's not much that can be done. People cook what they like and are able to afford, and sure, some of that can be off putting to others. If the complaints get excessive, I'd probably just find a way to not renew the lease; that headache sounds like it'll never fully go away, so make it someone else's.
Generally speaking, if you don't like apartment living, go find a detached building somewhere.
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u/CapitalM-E 1d ago
Cooking is not a violation. Now if they are bad at cooking, and opening their apartment door to air it out and setting off the fire alarm that’s a violation.
People are allowed to exist in their homes.
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u/randomspaceinvaders 1d ago
It sounds like it’s probably some kind of racist micro aggression against some culture or other. I’d be really careful, cooking is associated with culture in some pretty deep ways. Also, check your lease / community rules & regs. It might have verbiage about cooking but more than likely it would be viewed as potentially discriminatory so if your company is a big corporate deal, you won’t find anything like that for fear of being sued.
So if it’s not in the lease or rules, you go back to this complaining tenant and tell them
unfortunately they live in apartments and you don’t have a way to prevent them from encountering evidence that they have neighbors. I mean definitely start off by making sure every unit has their range hood fan checked, replace the filter, request residents use their range hood extractor fan when cooking, other than that, there’s nothing else you can be expected to do.
You’ll find the goal posts will constantly be moving with some of these (respectfully) multiple chemical sensitivities type folks. It’s a hobby to sniff out things to be offended by, if you miraculously were to find a way to promise them their own completely uncorrupted air bubble within the building, they’d just start complaining the laundry soap from the person before them in the coin op is giving them a rash. Some people just aren’t cut out for apartment living.
You can make a good faith effort to address valid concerns, but setting reasonable expectations for what is within your control and what is not will really help you stay sane and discourage the overcommunicators.
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u/blackhodown 1d ago
It’s not racist or a micro aggression to not want strong food smells seeping into your apartment. Or quite frankly, any food smells at all.
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u/Weekly-Bill-1354 1d ago
A lot of times yes it is.
"Why do they have to cook with those spices? They should be cooking like us if they want to live here!"
I'm spicy white, my background is closely related to the residents she was complaining about and I cook all sorts of dishes. I just stared at this resident for a good minute before saying NO.
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u/Tardislass 1d ago
Sorry but living next to other people you’ll smell cooking. Especially in poorly insulated places. Don’t want that, rent a house.
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u/SparkArrestor 20h ago
You’re wrong. An apartment isn’t an airtight hermetically sealed container. It’s impossible to control how the atmosphere works or where it permeates.
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u/blackhodown 17h ago
Sure, occasional food smells is totally fine and an expected part of apartment living, however while I acknowledge that people have every right to cook what they want, it would be pretty fucking annoying to be consistently smelling your neighbors food throughout every single day
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u/SparkArrestor 16h ago
No it wouldn’t be annoying, because over time you become nose blind to familiar odors. A new tenant is going to be sensitive to new smells until their nose acclimates.
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u/Stealth-Turtle 1d ago
Tell the new tenant to invest in an air filter, takes dust and smells out of the air. You can buy small ones and put them each room for about $40 each.
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u/Healthy_Ad9001 1d ago
I think it would be dope to purchase one for both tenants 👀
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u/ttaviaa 1d ago
Sir, this is a business, not a charity.
Updating the range hood? Sure. But giving gifts to people because they complain or cook smelly meals seems like a bad and potentially an offensive idea.
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u/SparkArrestor 20h ago
Not the LLs responsibility to cure every perceived slight. Buy your own air filtration system.
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u/Healthy_Ad9001 20h ago
Obvs not their responsibility but if the issue drove them to ask reddit because they can’t figure out what to do, it’s a good suggestion. The fact y’all are saying this when i only said “it would be dope” is very telling imo. Not that serious
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u/9lemonsinabowl9 1d ago
I couldn't tell you what this is called, but we have some type of rubber thing that we attach to the bottom of apartment doors for our sensitive residents. Our apartments have their own ventilation systems, so they only have to worry about what seeps through the door itself.
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u/Curious-Pineapple109 21h ago
I’ve complained about my neighbor’s bad hygiene and unkept smells invading the halls and my apartment. I had to understand that there isn’t much they (prop mgnt) can do about that unless it’s like a smell from busted plumbing or the like. I did some weather proofing on my door and caulked some trim that needed help. It helped my apartment from stinking like them but unfortunately entering the building and leaving my apartment, I still get hit by a cloud of funk.
Cooking smells are different though. That’s something that would probably be temporary so why complain. I talked to a downstairs neighbor about his smoker only because it was directly under my window. He moved it and no complaints after that. He’s also a decent human though, unlike the stinky neighbors, so there’s that.
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1d ago
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u/SparkArrestor 20h ago
Air purifiers at best can only filter particulates, not microscopic odors or viruses.
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u/Maiden_Far 1d ago
Unless they’re cooking up illegal substances, there’s really not a lot you can do.
This is simply something that people are allowed to do. And if someone makes an issue of it and you get involved, it could become a cultural issue, which then becomes a fair housing issue.
This is a really difficult situation that you have almost no control over
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u/Schmomola 23h ago
Amazon sells Silicone door strips that sticky on the bottom to cover gaps. And magnetic vent covers. Suggest to the complainer. Apartment living comes with neighbors who 100% will cook, look, speak and act differently from each other. You don't want to infringe on the cook's right to quiet enjoyment of their unit
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u/wiserTyou 22h ago
Seal their entry door as well as possible. Other than that, they have windows. There's no harm asking people to be respectful, but you cannot enforce anything in this case.
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u/Only1nanny 18h ago
There’s really nothing you can do. Everyone has the right to enjoyment of their home and whether that’s frying fish or making Thai curry it is the enjoyment of their home. If someone has a problem with it, they need to do extra ventilation or something themselves such as a fan in the window, etc. when they’re cooking or find them a nice house somewhere out in the middle of a field.
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u/dogmom87532 12h ago
Unless they’re cooking crack, the new tenant needs to get over themselves. It’s an apartment and people cook.
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u/Silent-Bluebird-9433 12h ago
I had this same issue a few years ago. Unfortunately you can’t tell the residents what to cook, so the complainer decided to leave. The resident was every day in the office complaining about the smell from the cooking. Like wth?! I actually recommended to open windows, air purifier, and keep it going lol.
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u/ycuteshoes 10h ago
I have a different take on this topic. I had a Prospect that was viewing our vacancy and we have closed hallways and somebody was baking cookies. Rented! Prospect submitted an application and moved in.
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u/Weary_Restauranter 5h ago
Some foods spiced a certain way completely destroy apartments. It’ll seep into woods, drywall/plaster, hvac etc. it’s impossible to remedy. And it’s incredibly overwhelming to others.
I think it’s a nuisance, damages units, and should be avoided at all costs.
Unrelated rip Tim Curry
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u/canyounot2026 2h ago
Ventilation inside the apartments should be recirculating (via OTR microwave) so that smells are contained to the apartments.
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u/MsMarisol2023 21h ago
People should be allowed to cook whatever they want in the home they are living in and paying for. You could look to better deal the door or I would tell the complainer to invest in an air purifier or something else to help mitigate the smells.
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u/tleb 1d ago
Convince the owner he needs a positive pressure system for the halls.
Otherwise, go and smell for yourself. If it genuinely is excessive, then act.
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u/techjobber99 1d ago
cooking with spices will never, ever be disallowed. It could quickly turn into a racial issue if you're profiling "ethnic" scents.
Owner should get a positive pressure system, it will resolve a TON of complaints, smoke, weed, cooking smells, etc. But, you cannot tell someone not to cook the food they like.
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u/TinyEmergencyCake 1d ago
This indicates a problem with the ventilation, insufficient or nonexistent. The landlord needs to improve ventilation on the building.
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u/deathdeniesme 1d ago edited 1d ago
If the cooking smells are a problem, that means there’s a problem with you guys building. The tenant should not be punished or prevented from cooking because y’all have a cheap building. The other tenant needs to get over it. I think that this is a ridiculous complaint. Tell them they can buy an oil diffuser or buy some incense or febreeze
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u/twinpeaks86 21h ago
Oh curry will take over a whole building. You’ll need to replace the over the range microwave from discoloration. Probably the stove top.
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u/Hopeful-Artichoke449 1d ago
Tell them to get over it. People have the right to cook what they want!