Air Pollution in my neighborhood

I have lived in my house for fifteen years. We've had five different neighbor changes within those past fifteen years. Now we have a young couple with no children next door. I think they are here to stay for the long haul, but there is a problem. They heat their house with an outside burning woodstove.

The problem is that their chimney looms over my fence. When the weather is cold, smoke billows into my yard. I can smell the smoke in my house and especially when I go out the door to take my kids to school. We can really smell it when the north winds blow. The smoke smells very nasty, thus polluting the air. I need to keep a supply of dust masks when I go outside in the winter.

We have talked to the city endlessly about the problem. We talked to the city compliance officer who told them to raise their chimney. Well, they did, for a while. Then they lowered it back down to its original height. Then I tried to get another city commissioner to come check it out. She never came out.

In "Woman's Day" Magazine dated May 8, 2007, there is an article concerning this particular problem. According to the article "a new study has found that polluted air ups the risk of heart disease in women 50 and older. If your area has high level of smog lobby for your city to clean up the air," says Dr. Robert Bonow, chief of the the division of cardiology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, "And if you're already at risk for heart disese, talk to your doctor about how air pollution could affect you."

My health as well as my kids health is at risk. Yet this city hasn't done anything about the problem. They say that we should talk to the neighbors. I don't think that will do any good as this is the way they have chosen to heat their house. What are we going to say, "Take it down and heat like everyone else does because it's a hazard to my health?" Yeah, right I'm sure that will make them take it down. I've gone the route through the city to check into it but that doesn't help.

I've talked to my kids about moving to a different location. But they like their house too much to move.

I don't know what to do. I just don't want to suffer adverse affects within the next 10 years. I can't hardly stand to go out to my car though when those north winds are blowing that smoking smog in my direction. It isn't healthy, but nobody seems to have the right solution to the problem.

My solution would be for the city to enforce stricter air standard laws and/or force the neighbors to find a different solution to heat their home because it just isn't healthy.