Sorry to hear that things haven't worked out well. Have you gotten any opinions from friends or other family? Has anyone else been around when you detect the odor?

Yes, a family member who was in from out of state to visit our dying mother. Hes an ex con and said he knows what they're doing. But cant get involved because hes gon straight now And has kids.

Go to the media

Use the Tip lines for the local news stations.

Put a big sign out front ‘fresh meth cooked here daily’

The neighbors agreed to the cops doing a walk through of their home? Was this scheduled? Seems super bizarre they found nothing at all, I would think the smell would linger where cooking is being done... So sorry to hear about this OP.

How do they keep the windows open but prevent someone from seeing inside?

Something sounds off here…

Not scheduled that I know of. The police came to talk to me, apparently they know all the people inside that house very well. They turned the row home into 3 separate sections as appartments. And the smell normally comes from the main floor. Through our dinning room wall. Every time same place sometimes it fills the whole house up with a smell sometimes just the main floor.

They have some sort of card board over open windows that are in the dinning room and ac units on top floors and the top floor windows have shades but the window are open.

I commented in the other one but it might not have gotten seen. Get a meth residue test kit. They're sold on amazon. It could be that it's not the neighbors but your own home. It could be that the smell comes and goes with subtle changes in temperature, humidity, sunlight coming in windows or curtains drawn etc. Get a notebook that is only used for logging the day/time you smell something. Take note of what the smell smells like to you. Take note of how long the smell lasts. Take note of anything else that happened when the smell started or stopped. Did you take a shower? Flush a toilet? Turn the stove on or off? Use the faucet? Run laundry? Start or finish a meal? It might be tedious but it will show you a pattern. Also, go over to r/homeimprovement to cross post.

Do you own or rent? Sorry if you’ve previously addressed that aspect. If you rent, it’s possible you could have an argument for constructive eviction.

I am inheriting this row home once the owner passes. Its bought and paid for. Been updated to have 2 bathrooms we had the house fixed and inspected. Ac unit newly fixed and cleaned, But this smell has been going on for years and it only happens when no guests are around, meaning if they dont think we have company but my.out of town guest didnt have a car so they assumed they could make smells I guess. And it stops when police or fire department comes.

I called local news tip lines. They said my situation is a little more immediate and they wanted me to call 311🤦‍♀️ but if a reporter is interested they will call me.

A house in my neighborhood does this, even on cold days the windows are open but covered with cardboard. A boy passed away from drugs there last year, the people who live there are squatting, the owner moved into the assisted living apartments two years ago. The police won’t do anything despite how many times we call. The fire department came once when the people set part of the house on fire, but they left all the trash, furniture and burning embers in the yard.

I’m not close enough to smell the smells through the walls but we can smell it outside the house. My neighbors and the block captain emailed the mayors’s office. The Health Department came out, the smell stopped for a while. The man from the health department said it was an overcrowding rule that let them make some of the people move, even though it was a drug cooking house. He compared it to Al Capone and the tax charges. I believe we will have to keep emailing the mayor’s office until the house burns down or collapses, it’s a terrible situation.

This is the email address for the mayor, I keep it on my important contacts list.

mayor@baltimorecity.gov

I hope your situation improves soon, it’s terrible to live in fear of sickness from what your neighbors do.

Thank you I will try this too. I am sorry you and your neighbors had to deal and still deal with that.

New episode of the wire just dropped 😭

you might want to try to have a conversation with a local cop about what they would need to see in order to actually do something. like, is there any way to convince them that it actually is meth. maybe bringing in large quantities of certain chemicals or something. you may be able to capture this with some hidden security camera.

in the meantime, do you have access to the basement? you can put some plastic all along the walls and floor to try to stop the smell from getting into your house.

I wish I could be more help.

Yeeeeeeeaaaaa, something fishy with this whole thing. OP first post asking what to do was 14 hours ago and this update describes what sounds like a weeks worth of activity.

Been going on over 2 years, the fd and police made me feel like me and my family was crazy. Sorry I didnt want a novel written down. I even have pics and videos and screen shots this place would be spammed if I showed everything. I'm sorry☹

Contact your councilperson and tell then your neighborappears to be cooking meth and the police aren'tdoing anything. If you have a halfway decent one, their office will rattle some cages with BPD.

I wonder if a shady private detective could help? I’d put on an orange vest, and hard hat, turn off their water and tell them I need to get to their main shut off valve in order to restore their water. Document as much as possible and release info to you. If I was in that business.

Wow

Not sure if you saw my comment on the other thread but verify your water heater isn't malfunctioning and burning chemical residue from the water.

Not a bad idea- also maybe worth posting in r/askLE

Contact your councilperson’s office. Get them involved

Idk how this sun came up on my feed but there are test kits you can swab your house with that will detect meth residue. Landlords use them in between tenants if a meth lab was suspected.

https://www.methlabcleanup.com/Meth-Field-Test-Kit.html

I still don’t understand why OP can’t give a VICINITY…. Again not your address, but people need to know ABOUT where is this you could say, north of Eastpoint Mall …. Locust Point,,, I mean something…

Curtis bay

Thank you OP and don’t get me wrong, I am very very sorry you are going thru this. I wish I had better advice, but I will agree with one poster here. I think you should call the Mayors office EVERY week and tell them you think they are cooking meth and the BCP and FD are not working together at all. I think they will rattle some cages. This must be so frightening to live next to!

Not to mention my family just threatened to kick us out if I call again because I am causing stress for calling and may incur fines? I never heard of that.

Smelling things that others cannot can be a sign of temporal seizures. Have an EEG. And a CT scan

Maybe it isn't so weird if there never was any meth tho? Two separate agencies checked it out, found nothing.

Let's not try to find the Boston bomber again here, Reddit...

We have a household of normally 4 people. 3 out of 4 smell it when it comes in including a voc detector.

Thank you I tried asking there. I cant make any more calls or my family will kick my family out.

Thank you we are buying one as soon as we can, I couldnt find those for some reason Thank you so much.

Get a carbon monoxide detector.

We have it, if doesnt go off when the smells come in.

Curtis Bay is not too far from where I live, we have a similar house here. The number of drug houses in this area really increased in the last two or three years. In my area it seems someone with ill intentions moves in as soon as a family moves out, and the new residents often sell drugs, offer drugs to passers by, create odd smells. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years in the city.

I suggest you install smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. The squatters in the house near me did something to the hot water heater, I imagine to get hot water without paying the gas bill. The house immediately next door to them had problems with carbon monoxide and then the fire. The carbon monoxide gave the man, the one living immediately nextdoor, headaches. I remember he showed dysphasia last year, I was there when the police were dismissive to him because of his speech patterns. Carbon monoxide poisoning can alter your ability to form phrases and make it hard to make yourself understood. It’s a shame all of us recognized that but the police were indifferent. Please get a carbon monoxide detector just in case. Your story sounds so much like the beginning of the house on Saint Benedict Street near me. I wish you well, please keep writing updates. Stay safe.

Can you make a timestamped video of the VOC detector showing positive readings that appear to be sketchy? I would create a chain of evidence/information, as top commenter suggested.

This should be something you can do without causing immediate friction with and for your fam, right?

Started posting it on my account page i dont want to spam.

Thank you, we have that kind of detector it never goes off and a air quality detector from Amazon. It alerts my phone if the air is bad.

OP, please don’t assume this is your neighbors. This could be anything; it could be coming from in your house, somewhere else on your street, or a major leak somewhere in your neighborhood. The Department of Health has an ecology section that investigates weird odors and that is really who should be coming out to help you. Call 311 like yesterday and let them know what’s up.

Since you have a VOC detector, even the cheapest models give a readout and keep a datalog. When they come out, show them what you have. Good luck.

Have you contacted your district’s council member?

E-mail your districts police and cc your council person. BPD needs to know about this. Squeak squeak little wheel!

Your fam sounds like a piece of work!

Nope keep notes of documentation of what you’re calling in and observing ain’t nobody gonna fine/prosecute you

That's what I thought. I dont know why my family is doing that. I just dont want to die from this.

Email: SouthernDistrict@BaltimorePolice.org

Address: 10 Cherry Hill Road, Baltimore, MD 21225

Phone: 410.396.2499

Call and say there’s a house in your neighborhood where you’re worried about meth and have someone give you a call, or summarize documentation and email. Tell your family that you’ll worry about being fined if it happens and the ordinance isn’t against an address it’s against a person. They’ve drank the Stop Snitching kool-aid

Maybe start buying up their meth? Find out where they keep it, then tell the crackheads to go get it all!

The BPD and BCFD walked through and found nothing. Can't do anything if there isn't anything to do.

Oh yea...I misread it and thought they walked through OP's home, not the neighbors'.

On the previous post, a hospital visit was mentioned. What exactly did the ER physician say?

I inhaled toxic chemicals. Chemical Inhalation was my diagnosis

I would just create records for yourself initially.

Where in Balt. is this? Is it near any factories or anything and does anyone else smell the smell? If not then this 100% sounds like meth. Meth smells like chlorine or nail polish and it lets off that odor when being cooked. Sounds like the police should get a search warrant for both of your neighbors because if this is coming from your block, there is a 100% chance of someone cooking meth.

Carbon monoxide is odorless.

>cant get involved because hes gon straight now And has kids

What does that mean? Can't get involved how?

He doesn't want anyone coming after his kids if he tries to help get them arrested.

Oh I see. Jeez. Sorry man.

Man that smell probably coming from your dirty ass house. U just mad they not giving you nothing for free

Are you close enough that it might be the trash incinerator?

I've lived here in curtis bay since 1998. I'm used to the smells, except the ones I smell from nextdoor.

The only way. Start smoking and infiltrate their organization. Work your way up to the cook. Kill him and take his place. The world is yours!

This story is so frustrating to read, and I'm sorry that none of the city agencies are willing to help you. I work in local news, and I think that your story is one more people in the city should know about. I'd love to talk to you (you can remain anonymous if you wish) about your situation and the lack of help you're receiving. Plus, sometimes city agencies won't do anything until they are called out by a report. Let me know if this is something you'd be interested in doing.

Regardless, I hope that you and your family get the help you need and figure this out.

Is there any chance it is another neighbor? The one with the windows open seems like the obvious culprit but what if it was another neighbor? The fact that they let the police walk through makes me think it may be someone else.

OPRA request calls at that locations from BPD and BFD. If it shows Overdoses etc. you obviously have a crackhouse. A camera might help to put up to see the a activity going in and out. If it’s a lot and it lines up with ODs I would contact BPD narcotics directly, they can set up an investigation into the house.

I meant more that OP and her family could be hallucinating bad smells and perhaps developing sore throat from the fumes. But it looks like they have one, so moot point.

Just checking, wasn't clear when you'd moved in, and most people outside south Baltimore don't seem to know we even have an incinerator.

Possible demonic presence. They are know to give off foul/noxious odors. Especially since you say it goes away when visitors come by. It's fucking with you. Time for an exorcism.

"Nothing at all" meaning residues, smells, stains, paraphernalia, etc... Not just meth itself.

Meth doesn't get made in Baltimore. I can promise you that it is EXTREMELY rare. It just doesn't sell here or in the surrounding areas.

The fire department uses a 5 gas meter that is very expensive so the VOC detector is a moot point if they brought out their 5 gas meters. Some chemicals like chlorine though are not part of those 5 gasses. It is HIGHLY unlikely they are cooking Meth. Extremely rare in Baltimore and surrounding areas.

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So you’ve never been down by Washington Village/where Second Chance is?

All good much appreciated

That's what the police said after their walk through, no smells no labs no residue.

Are you an officer? No I don't get down there alot but I've been a first responder in Baltimore for 17 years and never once had a patient with meth or walked into a meth lab environment that we are trained on. If im wrong I'm wrong but I've never seen it

I was warned about tweaked a by the folks at Housewerks like 15 years ago, I think they drove us to the light rail because they were so problematic. I’m not saying they cook there but I do believe there are users there, not far from homeless areas also.

I agree with the CO detector. I think it should be mentioned that CO detectors without displays typically don't go off until the concentration reaches 300ppm or 50ppm for 8 hours.

I keep a digital one next to my furnace and hot water heater that tells me the current PPM and peak PPM since it was reset last.

My understanding is that meth is indeed not common here. But it could be a clandestine lab of any kind. Fentanyl even. Don't know anything about what other drugs smell like cooking up. Like I said I'm from the Meth Belt lol.

Possibly emphatamines or coccaine but actual meth use is almost unheard of in Baltimore. Im sure it exists in single cases or from out of towners but is really rare.

Oh for sure it could be any number of things i agree. But highly unlikely is meth.