Despite the fact that smoking has been forbidden in all public places here in France, we get a regular dose at around 10pm every night, when our neighbour lights up at his open kitchen window (so as not to bother his partner) and his cigarette smoke flies straight into our kitchen vent, which then inevitably drifts its way into the lounge room.
It's basically as if he walks into our aparment and starts smoking in our kitchen.
Every night, we unfailingly find ourselves scrunching up our noses and rolling our eyes at each other. Delightful.
You can't win all the time, I suppose.
Oh I can SO sympathize. There is a round vent in my bedroom, looks like the ones they used to put in the apartments when everything was gas lighting etc. to avoid people asphyxiating in their homes, but since nothing in this building is gas anymore it's just a useless vent. Well - I discovered that someone in one of the upper apartments must have vented their STOVE VENT into the same airshaft and now whenever they are cooking their dinner (late, usually around 10pm) my bedroom smells like COOKING MEAT. This is neither restful nor terribly sexy. One night we think they must have been cleaning the oven because we were reading in bed and suddenly both of us had our eyes very irritated and tearing up, and we ended up sleeping on the pull-out sofa because it was so noxious in there. Now the landlord is trying to get someone to come and take the vent grill out and cover up the hole, all because the neighbor (or his contractor) didn't vent the stove fan properly.
It's always something when you live in an apartment. You're stuck with your neighbors and their habits.
Same problem here. One of my neighbours smokes on the balcony and the smoke, for some reason I don't quite understand, is blown into my bedroom. Of course, this "only" happens in summer, when I'd like to sleep with the window open...
The smoking ban, on the other hand, has boosted my social life ! Katia, do you sometimes go to Paris Carnet ?