Driven from Adelaide by wood smoke

I bought a house in Fairview Park in February 2000 on a 43 degree day. It had not occurred to me that the house would become unlivable due to wood smoke pollution. In winter 2000 I was sent to America for work. Winter 2001 was the first winter I experienced it.

It was bad. I hadn’t had asthma since I was a kid, but the smoke made me an asthmatic again as an adult, which I still struggle with. I couldn’t dry clothes outside, so I had to use the dryer.

The smoke would make me cough, and my chest would tighten and my heart would race. It was unpleasant and at levels that were dangerous to my health. The smoke would interfere with my sleep in my bedroom. Friends wouldn’t come and visit due to the smoke.

The neighbour would light their stove and my house would fill with smoke. I told my neighbour. They didn’t care. One evening at 11pm my house filled with smoke, so I went and knocked on their door in my pyjamas to tell them. They called the police. I invited the police into my home, so they could smell it, and they told me that no one should have to live like this. I was closing internal doors, using wet towels under the gaps below the doors and retreating to the least affected room. The police explained to them that I had done nothing wrong, and perhaps they could not fill my house with smoke. It didn’t help.

One night I got the hose out and sprayed it into their flue. They called the police again. The police did nothing as I said I was just giving them some water as they were giving me some smoke. I was surprised. I wanted to be arrested, so that I could explain to a magistrate that these people were making my life hell, even if that jeopardised my employment.

I complained to the Tea Tree Gully Council. The council officer was less than sympathetic, and told me they had a right to burn. They did not entertain a nuisance clause. They asked if they could let the Australian Home Heating Association have my details to “help solve the problem”. Naively I said yes.

I learned the real reason the AHHA got involved was to shut me up. I had given them a work email address. They used that to make spurious complaints about me to my employer. My employer made me come to a meeting and explain my behaviour. I explained I was being smoked out of my house and had made a complaint to the council, and my employer concluded that I had done nothing wrong.

The net result of complaining to the council was the neighbour doubled down on the smoke and it made the problem even worse.

I hung a sign on my front fence saying that I wanted no smoke pollution. All my neighbours started hating me.

I decided to go to the environment court and seek relief. The magistrate told me they had a right to heat their home. Nuisance again didn’t seem to come into it. I needed “scientific proof” that the smoke was bad. In 2001 pollution monitors were expensive and rare. He adjourned the case to allow me time to organise it.

I saw a house for sale in the Adelaide Hills far from other houses, sold my smoke-affected house, and bought it, taking on a large mortgage.

The people who bought my house lasted 6 months before they too sold. I dropped the court case.

Months afterwards I got a random call on my mobile from [the then-Deputy Director of the AHHA], and he called me the c-word.

I consider that I was forced from my home by the smoke. I consider myself wronged, victimised and bullied by the neighbour, the Tea Tree Gully council and the AHHA. I consider that I was betrayed by the government. No one should be forced to breathe smoke pollution.

There is a basic duty of care that the TTG council, and the South Australian government failed to deliver. Clean air is a human right and wood burning should be completely banned everywhere. All councils in Australia should be told not to give private information to the AHHA. The AHHA should have no say in setting Australian standards for stoves or on health policy. They should not be allowed on the standards committee. In fact I think the AHHA should be declared illegal. They have a policy of deliberate science denial and disinformation when it comes to the harms of wood smoke pollution [and the] real-world emissions of wood stoves.

I lived in the Adelaide Hills for 6 and a half years happily. I then moved to New Zealand for work. I have moved on numerous occasions due to wood smoke and rural burn-off pollution in New Zealand, and am fighting a losing battle for clean air where I live now. The expense of having to live on expensive rural properties is a burden I have had to shoulder since 2001, but I could not live in any town. I am too scared to return to live in an Adelaide suburb, as I am frightened the same could happen to me again, and no one should have to go through the experience I did.