Comments on Kerry Marrano Conversation (2016_06_27 11–09–26)

Lessons in Eschewing Responsibility

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/infographics/health-effects/index.htm#annual-deaths

For context for this post, see:

For the transcript and recording of this call, see:

Of all the information I’m publishing about this smoking addict’s smoke infiltration into my house, this has been the most difficult to process. I’ve literally procrastinated a year and a half on it, because, for some reason, it’s just very disturbing and difficult to accept that someone would take this kind of attitude.

Comments, by time index.

0:00

Note that she didn’t introduce herself, and certainly didn’t tell me that I was talking to a lawyer working for the town, let alone a hostile one trying to eschew responsibility for the problem. She acted as if she were just a note-taker conveying a message, and that’s what I thought she was.

Nevertheless, throughout this conversation, she prompted me to continue it while pretending to take a note for the mayor, and moreover, instead of trying to be helpful, she was trying obfuscate and put responsibilities on me — like understanding the town’s legal code, or asking me to tell her how The Mayor’s Office should solve the problem — rather than trying to be helpful in finding a legal/executive solution.

I was and am obviously very legally naive. I’m not a lawyer, and I can’t and shouldn’t need to become one to save my life from toxic smoke pollution in the neighborhood and infiltration into my house. I expect my elected representatives to effectively help with that, as that’s their job. Not to say, “Well, it seems like you have a challenge then!” (8:00)

1:00

At this call’s date, and so throughout this conversation and others, I was assuming that the smoke was coming from a certain house across Columbus Ave from me, and so the conversation turned around that. That turned out to be wrong, and you can read more about how I discovered the actual source here:

And why I incorrectly thought it was the Columbus Ave house:

I’ll also note here, that what I really wanted the mayor or the Department of Health to do, first, was to determine with certainty where the smoke was actually coming from. I had been leaving messages, voicemail and, it turns out, with Kerry Marrano herself, throughout May asking if they had been able to locate the source. They would have the means to do so, while I do not. I never fully trusted that that Columbus Ave house was the source, because the timing of their coming-and-going and the smoke didn’t really line up. If I had been more prepared for a conversation like this, I might have been able to argue that point first, as I later did with the Department of Health (but which they also refused to do).

2:30

My house is in foreclosure, and has been for a long time. Of all the things I need good lawyers for, I managed to find some good foreclosure attorneys who have been able to delay the process a good deal. But I’m still going to lose it eventually.

Why is it in foreclosure? Because I can’t rent it, and because I can’t work.

When I say I “can’t” rent it, I mean I ethically *may not* rent it, because it would be unethical to try to commit someone — especially a family with small children, my likely tenants — to live in a place that I know to be toxic to their health. I know other landlords would do so without a second thought. They are monsters.

Secondarily, there’s a practical aspect. A tenant can break a lease if I, the landlord, can’t provide for their “quiet enjoyment” of their apartment. So tenants might say they won’t mind the smoke and want to rent the units anyway, because of the schools and whatnot, but as soon as they realized just how bad it was — and realized that the toxicity of the smoke infiltration would more than offset any benefit of good schools — they would move out. If I continuously tried to repeat that cycle, between vacancies and make-ready costs, I wouldn’t be able to pay the mortgage anyway.

The tenants I had when this started moved out, with a comment about an asthmatic child.

As for my own work… I often can’t sleep because of the smoke, and if I can’t sleep and maintain a regular schedule, I would quickly get fired. Wall Street especially, but any software or technology company, might tolerate one or two “sick days,” but a series of constant absences or days that I was falling asleep at my desk would get me very quickly fired.

For more details on this, see the various plots of the smoke infiltration into my house and how it effects my sleep:

[URL, when published]

This has been going on since February 2015, so as of October 2019, that makes 4 years 9 months. Over that time, I’ve lost $1.235 million, based on my last salary and the rental value of the units.

3:18

I was concentrating on this “right to quiet enjoyment” because, as a landlord, I see that written into landlord-tenant leases. But it turns out that, and in other jurisdictions, there’s a long list of legal concepts that have been used to fight smoke infiltration from smoking addicts: battery, harassment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, nuisance, trespass, violation of “right to quiet enjoyment,” and so on.

Of course, because smoke and secondary-smoke are very well documented to be a toxic carcinogens and to cause heart disease, and many other diseases, and because they kill and have killed millions of people, and because the CDC has said there “is no safe level of exposure” to cigarette smoke, I consider it assault and murder.

And I believe the town has an obligation to protect residents from it, just as they would prevent and prosecute any other form of assault.

Note also that there is no “right to smoke”:

4:00

Here she continues the “note taker” ruse. But instead of leaving it at that, she tries again to abrogate The Mayor’s responsibility to the town and push the problem off on to me.

4:55

She urges to me to “… try talking to your neighbor … that would be a good way to go … that would avoid the whole thing!” and again “…maybe draft a letter to your neighbor?” after 6:00.

Well, I did eventually try to talk and write to the neighbor, and we saw how well that went. Not.

So as I said even then: “Smoking is extremely addictive so I doubt that just asking is going to do much…”

Even so, I had no idea that they were so crazed and so addicted that they would defend their habit by calling the police on me.

6:00

Yet again, she’s trying to abrogate Mayor Belmont’s responsibility to protect the neighborhood and the residents from lethal airborne toxins.

7:40

OMG!!! She thinks I have the windows open!!!

Not only do I not have any windows open, I have 6 mil plastic sheets tapped, glued, and caulked over the windows, and I’ve used Great Stuff, caulk, Rust-OLeum, Gorilla tape, hot-melt-glue, and other things to try to seal every possible crack and pore in the apartment I live in, from tearing up the carpet to get at the planks of the sub-floor, to tearing the drywall off to get at the structural 2x4s behind it and plumbing and electrical openings, to sealing around the structural I-Beam that supports the house, where it let air in above the ceiling.

I’ve detailed much of what I’ve done here:

[URL, when published]

The reason the smoke infiltration is worse in the winter than summer, is that in winter the colder air forms stronger convection currents — that is, the cold, dense air puts more pressure on the outside of the house to get in, while the warmer air rises through the central structure of the house. Every house has to breathe air like this, and even the best weather-sealed house is going to let some toxins in, if they’re in the outside air. When the outside and inside temperatures are closer, as in summer, that convection isn’t as strong (and reverses when the outside temperature is higher than inside, which only brings in smoke the other way of course). In summer, it’s much more just direct wind that seems to blow the toxins into the house, so that can lead to occasional days of respite when the wind is blowing in a different direction.

Also, studies of air pollution from highways indicate that when air is cool/cold — as at night, or in winter — it is more stagnant, and the toxins accumulate much more at ground level.

https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/science/how-close-is-too-close-to-live-by-the-highway?page=1

“The cooler night air is also typically more stagnant which ends up trapping pollution near the ground”

So like I said to her at 8:00: “I don’t think you understand the magnitude of the problem…”

8:23

I have a $1,000 air filter and a $500 air filter, both better-than-HEPA quality and with filters specifically designed to remove cigarette smoke, and they are not able to remove the smoke that comes into my house. (They’re useless again marijuana as well.)

9:00

Studies of air pollution from highways indicate that when air is still and cool/cold — as at night, or in winter — the toxins accumulate much more at ground level.

10:00

KM: “I just don’t think that they’re breaking any law…”

There’s a local law against barking dogs. At some point in this town’s history, the government passed a law against barking dogs. Now, I can understand why someone might want such a law, but barking dogs DON’T KILL ANYBODY. As such, smoke pollution in the neighborhood and smoke infiltration into residents’ houses is much worse, because IT KILLS PEOPLE.

So, if generic nuisance or whatever laws are not sufficient to stop it — and again, she wants to shove off to me the responsibility of finding that — then pass a law against polluting the neighborhood with toxins like cigarette smoke. It’s really very simple. But Ms. Marrano and Mayor Belmont did everything they could to eschew this responsibility.

Smoke Infiltration West Harrison

Written by

Smoke infiltration into another person’s living space is deadly, yet there’s no physical or legal way to stop it. This is the story of my many failed attempts.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade