Traeger Grill

My neighbor likes to cook on his Traeger. We live in a townhouse PUD of about 50 homes on around 20 acres. We have lovely greenbelt areas and all have open patios and are on one level. This is a neighborhood split about 50/50 with full time residents and seasonal/part time residents. My neighbor comes to his townhome most weekends. He will cook on the Traeger at least once during that weekend (two times at the most).

He has received a letter from our Management Company advising him that his meat smoker is becoming a nuisance due to excess smoke which is against our Rules and Regulations. There is nothing in our R&R's that addresses this subject. There is some language in the CC&R's regarding "Prohibition of Noxious Activities".

One member of the Board has stated that 'everyone' around my neighbor is offended by his smoking grill however, nobody has addressed this neighbor directly to complain about it being a nuisance (other than receiving this letter from Management). My neighbor tells me that his Traeger emits no more smoke or smell than any other bbq grill. He has not been asked to do anything at all to mitigate this 'nuisance' other than receiving a letter telling him it is a nuisance. My husband uses our bbq with smoke pellet on occasion and I put a fan on the patio to blow the smoke away from our (and our immediate neighbor's) house. This neighbor has a wide open space in front of his patio but the swimming pool area is quite close and his immediate neighbor has always said she is not bothered by the smoke and he treats her to his cooking as he does for us.

I attended the board meeting yesterday and this board member requested the manager send another letter because my neighbor was 'at it again'; using his Traeger that very morning. There was nothing on the Agenda so I am not sure if he should even have brought the subject up.

This board member has had a problem with my neighbor in the past and has made no secret of the fact that he despises him even going so far as to send him an email berating him over an issue two years ago. My neighbor is a gentle person and did not respond to the aggressive emails although he shared them with me. He is prepared to 'go to the mat' over the issue of his pastime of cooking outdoors on his (very expensive) grill during his weekends away from the City and it would appear that this board member is equally prepared to take the matter much further.

My questions are: Can he be compelled to stop grilling on his bbq? If he can be, would it mean we would all be subject to the same prohibition? Would this include the cigarette smokers in our neighborhood? Just how far could this problem extend and has anyone else had to deal with such an issue.

This particular board of directors we have at the moment are rather eager to change or adopt Rules and Regulations without following the correct procedure (i.e. going out to the community for comment for 28 days).

To the OP, do read the following:

https://www.davis-stirling.com/HOME/H/HOA-Barbecues

https://www.davis-stirling.com/HOME/N/Nuisance-Defined

https://www.davis-stirling.com/HOME/S/Smoke-Nuisance

These won't give you a black-and-white answer. They will inform you of what kind of battle you all may be facing. The Board will have to talk this over with an attorney and see if it's worth it to them to crack down on what may truly be a noxious activity.

Thank you. I already researched DS as much as I could but nothing seems to address this subject - exactly. I do fear that this may affect the whole community. know we would not be happy if we could not sit outdoors and enjoy our bbq. I also would hate to see this taken so far as getting lawyers involved which could very easily happen. Nobody wins except the lawyers.

(I still can't get with spending over $700 on a grill, but whatever lifts your skirts...)

Whenever I saw the infomercials on these grills, I got the impression smoke wasn't an issue, but in Googling the subject, it may the guy isn't paying attention to the owners manual on operating the thing properly.

Have this guy to go traeger.com/support/too-much-smoke and try some of those suggestions. In the meantime take some time and date stamped photos of the smoke and use that to demonstrate the problem. The board cwould then tell the guy to fix this or risk being fined for creating a nuisance (if your documents and state law allows it). If it contonues, send this to the association attorney. Or maybe the city, as this could be air pollution.

You and your neighbors can also get together and sue the but yourself (all of you can take photos to demonstrate how extensive the problem is). Good luck!

I doubt that there would be a rule/regulation.

Per your posting, your Covenants do have such a restriction.

Unfortunately, noxious is a subjective term.

What is not an issue for some can be an issue for others.

My suggestion is for your individual to ask the board to come by when he is using the smoker so they can see the issue for themselves and ask what options might be available to mitigate the issue to the complaining individual/s.

I concur.

Overall, this sounds like a Board member attempting to abuse their authority in order to harass someone they dislike.

BillD

MichaelS56

The remark about Texas is inappropriate and inaccurate. I cannot speak to California as I have not lived there in 25 years.

Don't knock it until you try it. I went the cheap route 16 years ago and bought a Big Chief wood chip smoker, I am able to make fall off the bone BBQ ribs and chicken.
will soon be replacing my LP grill with a Treager, it really is worth the investment, it can be an everyday cooker. You can grill regular steaks, chicken etc, you can ever
make a pizza in it that rivals a wood fired pizza.

Most likely not. Even your HOA's CCRs defer (in full or in large part) to the city's definition. The city's definition is clear that bee hives are not a nuisance. But IIRC, the city's definition is less clear on what is a nuisance. This is common across the country.

I would not say this at all. At the HOA/COA level, a leading nuisance is hard surface upper level floors. The courts have gone both ways on the subject. Which way they go is highly dependent on the circumstances.

Nuisance case law is extensive and highly situation-specific. It's not like the perpetrators of an alleged nuisance always win in court. Nor do those complaining about an activity being a nuisance always win.

Tim, this seems a reasonable way forward. I will suggest it to him.

In a perfect world, Mr. Traeger would drop off a pound of BBQ brisket to Mr. Complaining Board Member (Mr. CBM) and the problem would disappear.

The world being imperfect, I have a few questions:

- Has anyone besides Mr. CBM ever filed a complaint about BBQing in your neighborhood?
- What is the distance between Mr. Traeger’s grill and Mr. CBM’s residence?
- More details about the friction between Mr. CBM and Mr. Traeger?
- Finally: in all honesty, how outrageous is the smoke from Mr. Traeger? I’m inclined to believe that Mr. CBM is blowing the incident up - but it’s not impossible that Mr. Traeger is (perhaps unknowingly) hosting a noxious nuisance. If so, there might be an ‘easy’ mechanical solution to the issue. Just saying.

I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, and as has been mentioned already, once the lawyers appear, it’s impossible to predict what will happen. But in my opinion: even with the prospect of large numbers of billing hours, the HOA attorney will argue against taking this matter to court. I might be biased by living in Texas, but I think Americans consider BBQing an inalienable right. If I were the HOA attorney, I might be more concerned about Mr. Traeger filing suit against the HOA for interfering with his right to beef brisket.

tl;dr: somebody needs to tell Mr. CBM to knock it off.

BillD

Come to think of it, that may be what the problem is. It may not be the smoke. Some vegans are pretty strict and don't like the smell of cooked meat.

Bill, I would dearly love to give full details of the reasons why CBM has a problem with Mr. T. but I don't feel comfortable putting it on SM. Let's call CBM - Guy and Mr. T. - Bubba!! Bubba doesn't have a problem with Guy - it's the other way around. In the meeting Friday someone said 'Let's just go over and have ribs for dinner', Guy's reply was 'NO THANK YOU!' so that's not going to work. Guy is not a vegan or vegetarian. I think Bubba would be more than happy to share his ribs around. We happily enjoy them and often.

No-one, to my knowledge, has ever filed a complaint about BBQing in the neighborhood. Certainly no-one has complained directly to Bubba but Guy contends that 'everyone' around is objecting to Bubba's BBQ. I will ask one of the other neighbors when I see him next.

I am also confident that if there is a solution (perhaps moving the Traeger to another position or adding a device to it) Bubba would be more than happy to accommodate

Guy is a good hundred yards away but smoke does drift. We live a good way from Bubba so never smell anything but next weekend I will go around when he is cooking and see for myself what the problem is.

I agree with BBQing being a right and I am also concerned that if our HOA demands Bubba remove his Traeger then they must apply it to all.

One of problems here is that the OP LmT isn't on the Board. LmT at the open forum of a board could state that Bubba's smoke doesn't bother them.

BUT, LmT's is right, why is "Guy" the board member even bringing up the topic at a Board meeting, especially when it's not on the agenda (required in CA). And how is it that one director, and not the board with its vote , can instruct the GM to write another letter to Bubba? And what is it supposed to say? In most HOAs I know of, this would be an executive session topic anyway.

LmT also noted that this Board isn't following state statutes, by for instance, not giving owners a 28-day comment period for rule changes. So it seems that LmT and Bubba are having to deal with a rogue Board. they might consider getting others to work with them to elect different directors at the next annul meeting.

LmT's question seems to be: if the board follows due process, calls Bubba to a disciplinary hearing, and writes to him within the appropriate amount of days that he must get rid of his Grill, do all resident have to get rid of theirs? I don't think so. The hearing is about one Owner with a special grill that apparently puts puts out smoke for a long time.

Instead, the Board would have to propose a rule change banning all grills. a 28-day comment period would be required and it does'nt sound like even board members would want to ban all grills.

LmT can advise Bubba, as Tim suggests, to have the Board wander the area when Bubba is smoking and decide, at an executive session, if a violation is occurring and possible solutions.

Meanwhile it probably wouldn't hurt if LmT and Bubba think about solutions that could work and maybe experiment.

Just to keep an open perspective, it is possible that:

An individual has a respiratory issue that smoke aggravates.
The smell of BBQ (which is a many hour process if done right) makes one sick.
Prolonged exposure to BBQ smoke can cause physical ailments.

I also think it would be better if the neighbor who is complaining actually speaks to the other neighbor one on one. Unfortunately, that boat appears to have sailed. Personally, I don't have an issue with it. However, I can see how someone might.

I offer the following as a different perspective:

Neighbours' summer bbq smoke is a nuisance: how can we get them to quit this smelly nightly habit? From a UK paper

What Can I Do About Neighbor’s Bbq Smoke? from Memphis Barbeque

Neighbors BBQ Smoke (Complaints, Solutions, and the Law) from Yardblogger

Is it Illegal to Have BBQ Smoke Leave Your Property? from House Caravan

Neighbors ever complain about smoke??? from smoking meat forums

from that forum:

Fortunately both my neighbors actually use their smokers even more than I do. But, a friend of mine who lives in a nice but crowded development closer to the city has had a problem. What he did was pretty genius. He went and purchased a matching gutter downspout to the ones that are on his house. Installed it right beside an existing gutter downspout so it's not too noticeable. Then, when he fires up on the weekends he puts a dryer vent over the stack on his smoker and wedges the other end into the downspout. Now, the smoke travels up say 40 feet or so and gets up above the level of everyone's yard. No more complaints that I have heard about.

Treager is an electric grill which is more eco friendly. The newer Treagers have a muffin fan inside to circulate the smoke in the cooking chamber, so I don't see why there is a huge complaint over excessive
smoke. Treagers don't produce nearly the same amount of smoke as a coal or LP propelled grill does.

The way ours works (it is a small version but no more than 3 or 4 years old) is that you load the wood pellets into a hopper on the side of the grill. The pellets are fed into the smoke box by an electric powered impeller. The smoke box is heated to a high temperature (via electricity) and the pellets are heated and create smoke. The impeller automatically feeds more pellets as the old ones are burned away in order to keep the grill to a set temperature. So if you are cooking anything more than a steak or a hamburger, every time the pellets are added it puffs out a large amount of smoke. For a brisket this goes on for 6 - 8 hours or more. And the grill is hot. The condo where it is kept is more like an attached town house with a patio where we use the grill. But if the neighbors had their windows open it would be annoying for them.

My point being that this isn't some small electric device that doesn't put out any smoke. I don't see any difference in the amount of smoke the Traeger puts out vs. my gas grill, except the gas grill smoke comes out all at once for a short period.

I personally don't think you can differentiate this from a regular bbq. And I'm willing to bet the fire marshall isn't going to differentiate either.

If enough neighbors are bothered by the smoke, it seems like the next step is that the Board, via letter from management, would call Bubba to a disciplinary hearing. Your governing documents should tell him what to expect as due process must be observed.