Restoration & Refurbishment

Flat below's extractor fan venting into my flat!

Anonymous user 23 February 2024 - 3.54 PM

I live on the top (6th) floor of a Victorian purpose-built block of flats. Aprrox. 2 years ago, a flat 2 floors below mine was refurbished. Since then I have had strong cooking, cigarette & drug fumes stinking out my flat, coming from the flat 2 floors below. The occupant showed me their kitchen, which did not have a cooker hood extractor fan over the cooker (which, when installed, extracts the cooking fumes into a vent pipe above the kitchen ceiling, which then expels the fumes outside via a venting brick in teh exterior wall.) Instead their kitchen has a small 'Ventaxia' type extractor fan, attached to the plasterboard wall behind which is the space/cupboard containing the waste pipes for all the flats above & below. I'm not sure if the "Ventaxia' fan is attached to a vent tube within this space, so it is either expelling the fumes directly into the cupboard, from where it could be leaking into other flats above, as all the flats are connected by these pipes) OR: it is attached to a venting tube which is not expelling its fumes in the correct place & is then finding its way into my flat. The block is owned by the council & I think it was their refurbishment of the flat which installed the 'Ventaxia' & since then the cooking/smoke fumes from that flat have been finding their way into mine, via my kitchen & bathroom. The occupant of the flat said he'd rather have a proper cooker hood extractor in his kitchen, but so far the council has done nothing about it. What can i do about it?! My floor is old & there are gaps in the original floorboards underneath newer plywood boards & carpet - would getting this replaced & sealed stop the fumes coming into my flat entirely? Much of the smell is coming in via the pipes cupboard in the kitchen which has a concrete floor - which I have already sealed as much as possible - could the cooking smells be entering my flat via the waste pipes? If so what can be done about it? Is the council as landlord legally obliged to fit proper extractor fan cooker hoods in their flats? None of the kitchens in these flats have windows so extractor fans in kitchens are necessary, but is the badly installed Ventaxia fan acceptable for a kitchen with no windows? Do environmental health have any sway with this type of issue? Many thanks for any advice!