Ellie has a problem with her neighbors smoking pot all day in their yard. The smell is constantly in her house and she’s worried it will be a bad influence on her ten year old son. She went to confront them about it, and they told her that her husband smokes weed with them. Now she doesn’t know what to do about her neighbors or her husband. Are the neighbors smoking pot even her biggest problem anymore?
Ayla Brown: Good morning. We have Ellie calling in today for Ask Ayla Brown. Ellie, what happened with the neighbors and marijuana and your husband and your son? It sounds like just a problem waiting to erupt.
Ellie: I have these neighbors and they are the biggest potheads. I mean, they are smoking weed all day, every day. I mean, the scent of this comes over my fence. I can smell it in my house because they’re outside doing it. They’re doing it in their house and they’re right next door. It just permeates my life, basically. And I have a ten year old son. And this isn’t really something I want him exposed to. But being next door to them, he sees it. He smells it. Any time you run into them, them coming in and out of their house, they’re not only smoking, they’re eating it.
Ayla Brown: Do they have jobs or do they just stay home and smoke it all day?
Ellie: I mean, I don’t know if they work from home or if they just smoke at home all day, but they are just always there.
Ayla Brown: And it sounds like your houses are close to each other if you can smell it.
Ellie: Yeah, they’re pretty close. I mean, the yards aren’t that big, but it’s more of the distance between the houses and the fence. We’re really close to each other on the property line where the houses are. I’m concerned about my son gaining an interest in it, seeing it all the time and our neighbors are fairly young, you know, their early twenties. And so I think for my son who’s ten, they seem kind of like the cool kids, like just a little bit older than like a babysitter. But I don’t want that to be somebody he’s looking up to. So I went over to talk to them about it, and they told me that my husband has been going over to smoke with them. I had no idea. As far as I knew, my husband didn’t do drugs. This is something that, when we had started dating, it’s been years now. We have a ten year old son together. We’ve been married for like 12 years, dated for we’ve been together for 15 years. And this whole time, I’ve been saying that I don’t support any sort of drug use. And that was important to me.
Ayla Brown: It’s not even drinking. So I’m just wondering, I’m just throwing all the drugs out there to drinking alcohol, yes or no?
Ellie: Occasionally.
Ayla Brown: So your husband goes over and smokes weed with the neighbors. All right. So what now?
Ellie: They’re saying they’re not going to change their behavior. And I had the point that I was going to try to call the cops and see if there could be some sort of intervention because what they’re doing now might be their choice. But the way that they’re doing it is affecting me in my home because it is coming through our walls. But now I’m like, my husband’s involved with it and I don’t know what to do.
