Should I be worried?

If you are a reader of this blog then you must be interested in the smoking debate, you know, the one the anti’s say is over. Of particular interest to me is the SHS anti smoking mantra that has invaded the bodies of normally sensible people. It was the myth of SHS that drove me out of my apathy pre ban to look on the net for like minded people when I found Freedom2Choose, or The Big Debate as it was known as back then.

If you have clicked on my blogroll links lately then I’m sure you have been taken to Pat Nurse and Simon Clarke’s blogs, to name but two, and read that ASH have turned their attention to banning smoking in the home, something their leader, Deborah Arnott said her corrupt organisation would not be seeking. But it seems that she and her motley crew have been bolstered, like a drunk man starting a fight, by that bastion of illiberal anti smoking shit kicking, California.

The whole absurdity of SHS and it’s killer instinct to travel through walls and along communal pipework was first muted by one Jonathan Winickoff, (or was it Stanton Glantz? I find it hard to keep up these days,) whom Chris Snowden rips into here and here so I will not go there.

Apart from the usual incitements towards abuse and hatred of the smoker this caught my eye in this ASH document which goes under the title “What landlords can do":

Landlords already have the power to make their properties smokefree provided that the terms
are made explicit in the tenancy agreements. Enabling tenants to achieve smoke-free homes
by including smoke-free clauses in tenancy agreements is not only good public health policy
but also has economic benefits.
[…]
Private landlords, local authorities and housing associations alike can include a clause
prohibiting smoking in new tenancy agreements to a building.

It’s that last quote about local authorities and housing associations that made me beg the question “Should I be worried” in the title of this blog. Let me tell you a story.

I live in a council flat run by the local authority in Middlesbrough, have done since 1978 when the Mrs and I moved in with the aging mother in law. In 1981 Beryl’s mother died and we took over the tenancy. About a year and a half later we were told that the utility area between the bathroom and the kitchen, where the communal pipes, stopcocks, wiring etc. run throughout the block was encased, on four sides, by Asbestos boards. I am not kidding when I say that it was like a scene out of a biological disaster movie when they came to “fix” the problem. The workers were dressed up in biological suits and walked through a tunnel they had made from the front door to the bathroom, a very short distance. So, did they take the offending Asbestos out? No, they did not, they painted it! Remember this for later as, after near on thirty years I have just recently found out that they 'neglected' to inform me and my flat dwellers of something that could be detremental to our health. So flash forward to 2011.

I’ve known for a couple of months now that Erimus housing, my landlord, which is a subsidiary of Middlesbrough Council, that major works were afoot to finally remove the offending known killer Asbostos.

A lady calls.

A woman from Erimus Housing called to explain the timeline of events for the removal of the offending killer Asbestos. I was gobsmacked when she said that, nearly thirty years ago, when they painted the killer Asbestos, they could not paint all sides as one side was in a position that made that impossible and they now have decided to remove all the killer Asbestos??? Why didn’t they do that nearly thirty years ago? It is no less a killer now than it was then!

So the work is being done and I and my ailing wife, who has Alzheimer’s, have to move to a ‘courtesy flat’ in the ninth floor for six days and I am not looking forward to that, with my wife’s dementia my main concern. So we have to move out on the 17 of January 2012.

Instructions over the lady from Erimus just had to go through a box ticking exercise with questions they mostly have on file anyway. Before she started I said something I should have kept tight lipped about.

Before she started box ticking I said: “Ah, I’ll bet I know one of the questions!” and when she asked me
what question I said “I’ll keep that till you are finished.”

Well she box ticked to her hearts content but never once mentioned the smoking. When finished she asked my what was that question I’d thought she was going to ask her.

When I told her she said, stern faced, “you have to go out onto your balcony to smoke, you have to think of others, it’s policy that there is no smoking in the flats.” then said, “when you go to the courtesy flat then you cannot smoke there either.” I laughed and am sure that she was winding me up but she never cracked a smile. I can only think that the likes of Deborah Arnott and her corrupt fake charity are getting to those who are landlords and their hirelings, a sobering thought to me as I will refuse to give up smoking IN MY OWN HOME!

PS: I am now asking for a copy of my tenant agreement to try and clear this up and have been on the Erimus site to find clarification but can find none. Either this lady was taking the piss or has been duped by the likes of ASH et all.