How do I stop smoke from being drawn into unit via open air return in attic?

Question

I'm kind of at my wits end, trying to resolve some serious issues we have at our apartment. Not sure if this is the right place to ask this question; if not, please point me in the right direction.

The Situation

We live on the top floor of a multi-level apartment building in Southern California. Neighbors around us smoke cigarettes and marijuana (despite this being specifically prohibited by the lease agreement), and somehow that smoke is making it up into our attic. This is a significant issue, as our AC/Heater/Fan unit is not ducted to the air return vent in our hallway, but is instead open, sucking in air from the attic (and probably some from air return vent as well). This results in a lot of smoke in our apartment, strong enough to wake us up in the middle of the night. This has forced us to quit using our AC, even during the heat of the summer.

My Question

We've been trying to resolve these issues with our landlord for around six months now to no avail. My question for those of you with more experience than me in HVAC systems: is this "open air return" system that is drawing in a lot of attic air a genuine issue that the landlord needs to address, or do we need to look into other ways of convincing the landlord to help us?

Answer 1

TL;DR

Check your lease and state regulations for a "Repair and Deduct" clause. You might be within your right to schedule a repair yourself and deduct it from the rent.

Aside from it being vehemently disgusting I would classify indoor second-hand smoke as a fairly serious habitability problem. You might consider reporting it to the health department.

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This is a significant issue, as our AC/Heater/Fan unit is not ducted to the air return vent in our hallway, but is instead open, sucking in air from the attic.

This right here goes against the installation instructions for just about every residential furnace. Whether or not it's a code violation would require a town inspector to take a look.

The installation manual should explicitly state that the furnace should not be used in this "open-air" manner. It should be properly ducted to circulate as much conditioned air as possible.

The landlord clearly doesn't care though and they don't care about people smoking.

I would imagine that inspectors are very conscious about energy waste in California but then again if it's not life threatening then nobody will have an interest in helping you unless it either makes or loses money for them.

Check your lease contract to see if the landlord is violating the agreement and you could try threatening to withhold rent.

Aside from that you probably need to find somewhere else to live.

Answer 2

This is far more serious than secondhand smoke

The issue with your HVAC return is far more serious than getting a load of dank from the downstairs neighbors, as if that can happen, then the smoke from a working fire can also invade your apartment, and that's a much more acute health hazard than anything a bunch of smokers can produce. Note that this threat extends to fires on the exterior of the building as well; a common failure mode for NFPA 13R sprinklered, Type V construction buildings is when a fire on a balcony, porch, or such ignites the cladding, creating a climbing exterior fire that invades the attic via the soffit vents. This effectively overtops the sprinkler system, rendering it unable to stop the building from being totaled by the attic fire, and in your case, would lead to your unit becoming utterly untenable from distributed smoke well before the running attic fire could displace you by other means.

So, I'd have a HVAC company look at it simply to verify the condition in question; if this is a truly disconnected situation, then ring the city inspectors, as IMC 601.5 point 7 explicitly prohibits taking return air from an unconditioned (vented) attic.