Edit: here's the video: https://imgur.com/a/MtPc4Qj
I also clarified the Ghent thing 🙂

Alright so this morning I woke up to my older parents coughing horribly, which is no surprise, yesterday our house was utterly filled with smoke from our neighbours miserable attempt at burning wood. It's horrifying and heartbreaking and I'm truly worried for their health. In winter this happens several times per week, unless the man is in his house by the sea.

This man moved in three years ago, and immediately started doing this. He often burns plastic or wet wood and it … actually not someting you can do here? We're in a densely populated and not very well off part of the city, so it causes a lot of people to suffer, but even in our house, which has been painstakingly renovated, there's a lot of smoke drifting in from underneath the garage door and the mailbox, simply because he produces so much of it. (let me share a video, actually)

I can't describe how much this sucks, most stuff we own smells ..tarry, like brown coal, including our walls and books. Our neighbours have small children, we have a vegetable garden, there's the constant stress of never being able to open a window to air out or knowing what you'll get when you turn into the street. I myself spend part of the week in the center of Ghent, where people burn a lot of (mostly dry) wood. I've never experienced anything like this there. We have pm-meters at my parents', one inside and one outside, and it's objectively bad.

We talked to him. Claimed we have to understand, he owns a little forest and it's cheaper to heat his house this way. He bought the house next to his the week after, and brings the wet wood in with his tesla, so fuck us I guess. He claims his house gets too hot when he runs it full power so he NEEDS to run the thing with the oxygen supply closed, he says he's "allowed to do this". (there's a lot of stuff you're allowed to do here.) So yeah classic case of more money than brains, zero empathy. There's been times when he seems to do it on purpose, when we had our roof fixed he urgently needed to burn old shoes or something, the roof workers told us they had a bad cough a week after :c I know it's the same issue a lot of people have every winter, but this fucking guy is really doing the turbo asshole version of it.

We've talked to the _milieudienst_ of our city with not much hope since we live in the corruption and failed governance capital of Limburg. They did actually come by and …merely instructed him to slightly higher his chimney. Sometimes someone calls the police, who are rather helpless in this scenario, they come by and ask him to stop and he doesn't, the end. He's been explained, several times, how to properly burn wood, but he's not particularly interested in doing things properly or not ruining the health of an entire block of innocent people.

This is was an alright place to live till this guy reverse-gentrified it. We have a nice house finally that we put a lot of work in ourselves, my parents were hoping to get old here, having to consider moving out because of this nasty little man is extremely heartbreaking. I just don't know what else we can do at this point. It's exhausting to try to think up new solutions or approaches, meanwhile the problem persists. It's horrifying to consider legal steps against someone with a lot of money and I've read the report on how vrederechters utterly, systematically fail to acknowledge the suffering this causes. Even if they did, then what? This guy is just going to ignore everything a judge has to say anyway. Is there anyone who dealt with something like this or knows what to do? I'm legit at wits end here.

by NoGarlic2096

32 comments

  2. this is what a happens when you glorify individualist behaviors at all levels.
    Sorry my comment does not help. But it’s the root cause too.
    If people were living together, in community, this won’t happen.

  4. That really sucks.
    Please protect yourself. Buy air filters for the house, install a board to the garage door so that it closes tighter, close the letterbox and install one if no link to your interior.

  5. long, hart en vaatziekte en kanker krijg je van houtverbranding.

  6. I have air purifiers in my home. Shouldn’t be necessary but does the trick in a pinch

    Edit: omg that video looks horrendous

  7. Call the police, in just about every commune this is illegal and then go to the vrederechter and start legal procedures

  8. As a first step, maybe you could talk to the non-emergency service of your local police department? This pretty much seems like something a wijkagent could get involved with.

    Make sure to clearly get your point across, and underline that you’re worried about the health of the neighbours, especially with kids around. Try to get information on possible steps from them.

    I’d also work on building up some proof in the form of photographs, like smoke from their house drifting towards neighbours. Not sure if it’ll help your case, but it might.

    Your town/city probably also has a service that could help you with this.

    Other than that I thought of the fire brigade. Don’t make it an emergency call, but perhaps you could let them know that you’re worried about safety and health too?

    Edit: sorry, read your post too quickly and noticed you did some of these already.

  9. Perhaps you could try to rally other neighbours and consult a lawyer collectively. You will be able to split the costs and maybe the threat of a lawsuit in a strongly worded letter might cause him to back off without actually having to go to court.

  10. Just saw the video, that’s like old locomotive levels of smoke haha

  11. Please do share that video. Because the entire story sounds so unbelievably caricatural that I don’t believe it for a second. The holes in it are bigger then the plotholes in Star Wars.

  15. Call the fire brigade, had a neigbour do the same, they check air quality & WILL make a visit to said neigbour. Start there

  16. Jesus Christ, that video! I would just keep calling the police every time it happens, and gather evidence as well every time. This can’t possibly be legal.

  17. With that amount of smoke, I would call the fire department. How can this be legal? I hope you can get this resolved.

  18. Just buy a powerful air purifier. Save yourselves some nerve cells

  19. if they’re burning more than just wood contact your municipality the *milieutoezichthouder* will have to come check it out and verbalise them if it is the case

  20. We live in a wood burning boomer neighborhood too, nowhere near as bad as as your neighbor but there are a dozen of them. Vasco filterbox in the ventilation system saved us, indoors at least.

  22. Iedere keer schriftelijke klacht bij dienst leefmilieu en lokale politie, als ze niets doen kan je afdeling handhaving van departement omgeving en de OVAM en passant ook aanspreken, afval verbranden mag niet in Vlaanderen

    Op burgerlijk vlak kan je die mens aanschrijven wegens burenhinder en evt voor de rechter dagen

  23. That video is wild. Ive never seen something like this.I never understood the hate for people using wood stoves as my parents have a fireplace which literally has no smoke or even smell coming out the chimney, it’s a big block full of sand with multiple chambers so that everything gets burned. The only time you notice it’s on is the first time my dad lights it, as the block of sand doesn’t have any heat left in it to create enough draft to pull oxygen to burn everything. I assumed people used either gas or electricity for heating or some kind of stove like theirs which is super efficient and optimized.

  24. Its very illegal. Also dangerous for the owner to get a chimney fire.
    Call the police, its a clear cut case of stankoverlast.

  25. If you’ve exhausted all the friendly options, I would suggest you take your question to r/UnethicalLifeProTips/

  26. Don’t you have a smoke detector? Correct me if I’m wrong but if the stench of smoke is inside, shouldn’t a detector go off?

    Besides that, call the fire brigade because there’s a chimney fire and the whole house smells.

  27. I feel you, I used to have a neighbour like that too (similar sight actually, but usually smoke was black..). Eventually we filed a (online) complaint with the police of ‘ongoing and recurring pollution’, police came by, went to talk to the person living there who was “shocked” and claimed he never burnt plastic. Then he never did it again lol. So we had it easier I’m afraid. We did also buy an air purifier (also for all the close neighbours who loved to barbecue), it’s a life saver, definitely in the bedroom.

  28. Most communes have rules regarding burning wood. Burning wet wood is almost always forbidden but tbfh this looks way worse than just wet wood.

    If he claims this is natural untreated wood it definitely didn’t dry properly for two years.

  31. Burning wet wood is dumb but not illegal. Burning plastic however is illegal for obvious reasons. Call the fire brigade and police.

    Edit: I have watched video, yeah this is a fire hazard in the works. Not only is the amount of smoke more than what a steam locomotive is making, whatever he’s burning in there is going to leave residue in the chimney stack which over time will become flammable itself.

  32. This makes me so angry. Have you contacted your commune? I just sent this to the husband of a friend of mine who is a fireman in Brussels if I hear back I will send an update. It’s disgusting. That smoke looks toxic. No wonder incidences of asthma and respiratory problems are so bad here.

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