Family says smoking tenant forcing them to move
Last Updated: Wednesday, October 7, 2009 | 6:37 PM MT
CBC News
Meagan Langlois and Dave MacDonald play with their two children, Siri and Quentin, at home. (Mary-Catherine McIntosh/CBC) An Alberta family with toddlers says they may have to move from their rental home because of smoke fumes wafting from another suite.
The family has rented part of a house in De Winton, south of Calgary, for seven years. But a tenant who smokes recently moved into the downstairs suite.
Dave MacDonald and Meagan Langlois say the tobacco fumes coming into their home is harmful to their two children, aged one and 2½, because they're allergic to smoke.
After talking to the tenant, the landlord, government officials and a lawyer, they say they have no choice but to move.
"I'm very angry. There's no other way for me to protect my children other than to move. To leave our home, to leave where we've been for seven years where they have been born," explained MacDonald.
He said he rented the suite on the agreement that it was non-smoking.
MacDonald said he's surprised there are no rules governing smoking in rental units because Alberta has banned smoking in public places. Last year, the town of Okotoks, which is near De Winton, even banned smoking in vehicles carrying children 16 years old and younger.
"It's absolutely ludicrous that we have no rights to protect our family as parents or just concerned citizens," he said.
The tenant and the landlord turned down interview requests.
No restrictions in lease
If smoking wasn't restricted under the new tenant's lease, the family will likely have to move, said Brian Seaman, a lawyer with the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre at the University of Calgary.
"Unless the landlord is willing to talk to their tenant and the other tenant is nice enough to vent the cigarette smoke out a kitchen fan, then realistically I don't think the family has any real legal recourse here."
They could take their case to the courts, but it would will likely cost too much money to be worth the effort, he said.
"[Under] common law, a person could sue in nuisance … but they would have to show that their health has been affected in some way. They could get damages or an injunction, which is an order from the court for the offending party to stop doing what they are doing," he said.
