Unpleasant odors can be very difficult to live with, especially if it is something strong, like smoke or body odor.

What would you do if your upstairs neighbor kept complaining about smells of smoke and body odor from your apartment, but while you were willing to investigate, you knew the smells weren’t real? And to make it worse, the neighbor was now shouting about your smells to the rest of the building?

That is what was happening to the couple in this story, and while she wants to be a good neighbor, she also doesn’t want to put up with being harassed anymore, so she is looking for advice.

Personally, I think she needs to document every interaction and continue to report it to the landlord. This is harassment, and it cannot be tolerated. Read through the full story below and see if you agree.

Neighbour has meltdown in hallway that I stink. Advice needed.

I’ve got a huge problem with my neighbor, and I honestly don’t know how to handle it anymore.

The smell of smoke can get everywhere.

It all started about eight months ago when she came to our door and said her apartment smelled like smoke. My husband and I do smoke, but we never smoke inside the apartment, only on the balcony.

Where I live this is allowed, it would even be allowed inside but we choose not to for many reasons. We told her that, but she didn’t believe us.

She seems more than willing to adjust her smoking to try to help. But she needs more information.

I gave her my phone number and asked her to contact me if she noticed the smell again. She never used my number.

Instead, she came back another time and claimed that the smoke was causing health problems for both her and her daughter.

Honestly, the apartment of a smoker is going to smell like smoke, even if they never smoke inside.

I invited her into our apartment so she could inspect and smell the room directly underneath her daughter’s bedroom for herself. She refused. I also offered to have the landlord come and inspect the apartment.

Eventually we started believing it couldn’t possibly be coming from us, because she claimed she smelled strong smoke on days when we had been away from home all day.

Clearly, this lady has an elevated sense of smell.

Then, for about four months, we didn’t even see her. The next time we ran into each other in the stairwell, everything seemed completely fine. She was friendly and even mentioned that she’d gotten new carpet and that the smoke problem had improved.

So, we were really surprised when she showed up at our door again yesterday. This time, however, the accusations had changed. She said she’d just returned from vacation, opened her balcony door, and was immediately “attacked” by a strong body odor.

Maybe she has some sort of mental health issues.

From there, the situation escalated quickly. She started shouting throughout the entire stairwell that we should be ashamed of ourselves, that we don’t shower, that we have poor hygiene, that we don’t wash our clothes, and that we disgust her.

She genuinely believes that, in our old apartment building with high ceilings—where you can’t even hear people walking upstairs—our body odor somehow travels up through the ceiling into her apartment.

If anything changed, it is on the part of the upstairs neighbor.

One thing that’s worth mentioning is that we had already lived here for two years before she ever complained about any smells. Nothing about our lifestyle has changed. If anything, we’re home less now than we were during those first two years.

Now, I’m sure every neighbor in the building has heard her shouting that I apparently don’t shower, smell bad, and wear dirty clothes.

Involving the landlord is a smart move.

Until this latest incident, I had always tried to be kind and understanding because I thought she was simply worried about her daughter. But now that she’s resorted to publicly insulting us, I don’t know what to do anymore.

I’ve already contacted my landlord and asked him to come inspect the apartment and provide written confirmation that there are no signs of indoor smoking, mold, or anything else that could explain these complaints.

They really seem willing to change if the smells are real. But they aren’t.

From now on, I’ll also be avoiding any contact with this neighbor. If she comes to my door again, I won’t be opening it.

Over the past month we’ve had three different guests stay with us, and we specifically asked them to be completely honest if there was any smell in our apartment that we might have become nose-blind to. Every single one of them said they noticed nothing unusual.

Document every interaction and report it to the landlord as harassment.

So I’m wondering: how would you handle a situation like this?

And do you think it’s even physically possible for a body odor to travel that far and remain that strong?

The upstairs neighbor may have mental health issues, or even a physical health issue that is causing her to smell things that may not be there. She needs to get evaluated.

Read through what the top commenters had to say about this story and see what you think.

This commenter may know what is causing the issue.

Here is an interesting point. Maybe this is what is happening.

This commenter says to tell her to see a doctor and avoid her.

Just ignore her as much as possible.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a student who did the math and figured out he was better off skipping school than serving detention if he forgot his ID.

This commenter has experienced something similar.

There is something wrong with this woman, and it isn’t going to get better on its own. They need to be careful to document every interaction, but she should also avoid her to the extent possible.

In addition, she should keep reporting it to the landlord, and if things get worse, escalate it to the police.