Handle complaints about residents’ cooking odors exactly as you would any other odors.
In most of my full-length fair housing classes I include discussion on national origin. Often I will get what I have now come to call “The Curry Question,” based on the differences in various ethnic cooking.
Part A of that question is usually along the lines of, “It smells bad and the neighbors are complaining, what can we do?” Part B is, “It costs a lot to deal with the odor on move out—can we charge for those costs?”
I have answers to these queries.
But first, please take the expression “smells bad” out of your vocabulary. You (or your residents) may not like a particular cooking odor, but that is subjective. Do you really think that millions of people wake up each morning thinking, “Dang, my cooking smells bad, I wish I didn’t have to cook the way I do?” Of course not—cooking aromas are a part of one’s culture and traditions.
Now, what do you do when a resident complains about a neighbor’s cooking odors? You handle this exactly as you would handle that neighbor’s complaint if it were about cigarette smoke, cigar smoke, pipe smoke, too much Lysol, too much perfume, garlic or burned Toll House cookies.
No resident has the right to allow their odors, whatever they may be, to intrude into other apartments or the common areas. It is a lease violation. Deal with it accordingly—as an “odor”—and keep in mind that the resident’s country of origin, religion, race, color and familial status have nothing to do with this. Just be sure that you can always demonstrate that you have a consistent process for all odor-related issues.
What about the make-ready for a cooking odor-infused apartment? You handle this exactly as you would handle left behind odors from cigarette smoke, cigar smoke, pipe smoke, too much Lysol, too much perfume, garlic or burned Toll House cookies. If you charge to remedy those odors, you can charge to remedy cooking odors, too.
Simply put, it is not about the type of odor or the resident—it is about “an odor.”
Handle it correctly and don’t cause a stink.
Nadeen Green is Senior Counsel, For Rent Media Solutions. She can be reached at 770/801-2406 or
nadeen.green@forrent.com. This article originally appeared on MultifamilyInsiders.com.