Find a nice loud leaf blower. Fire it up and aim it at their house whenever
they are burning.

Wear ear protection.

Another alternative is to buy a santa suit, stuff it full of fiberglass
insulation and when not a creature is stirring on xmas eve bring out a
ladder and a broomstick and stuff it down the chimney. They will get the
message next time they light up.

-j


wrote in message
ups.com...
I have a friendly helpful next-door neighbor here in the woods (PA)
where the zoning ordinance does NOT prohibit open burning. This is a
lifelong neighbor (30+) who grew up along with us and with whom we have
up until now been on very good terms. (The good terms do not extend to
neighbor's wife.)

For the past month, our home has REEKED of whatever it is that he has
been burning. We live on a dead-end road, but I don't want to give the
impression this is, like, Deliverance-style territory. It's just a
70's-era development in the Poconos. We're not concerned that he's
burning something necessarily illegal as we are that our home is
becoming uninhabitable because of the smoke.

I phoned two Saturdays ago. Neighbor's gnarly wife answered, claimed
"We've burned twice a week for ten years!" (patently untrue), and that
"*I* don't smell a thing." The response, while not out of character
for this woman, was a bit more unfriendly than we're used to, even for
her.

The smoke got even worse, so we actually phoned neighbor's mom, who
lives in a house out of line of the drifting smoke. Result was that
smoke stopped, and next day, neighbor drives over to apologize and give
me a hug. I thought the problem was solved.

Two days later, the burning started again. Because neighbor is
extremely well-employed, I could see it wasn't a matter of his burning
on yet another Monday mid-morning, and I started to wonder if he
installed some sort of wood-burning device inside his home whose vent
is aimed directly our way.

What if anything can we do to settle this nightmare? This would be
like something from Seinfeld if it wasn't causing such pain. If we
contact him again (and we'll have to do it when we're sure we won't
instead get wife-from-Hades), we'll 1) "take back" the friendly
reception of our complaint to his Mom, or 2) show that we don't believe
his explanation of "just extra wood left over from chopped trees." He
would have had to cut down half his lot in order for the burning to be
going on this long.

Any advice--mechanical, structural, legal, seasonal (!)--desperately
needed and appreciated.