Wood smoke robs you of your home

Letter to the Editor-Fence Post
Daily Herald Newspaper
Paddock Publications
Arlington Hts, Illinois
Published May 22, 2008


Wood smoke robs you of your home

Like many people, I grew up enjoying campfires, not thinking about smoke.

That changed Jan. 2, 2006, when our neighbor in Newaygo, Michigan, installed an outdoor wood boiler downhill and 90 feet from our house.

We didn't know what the unit was, but the first day of operation, we experienced sore throats and headaches from smoke that drifted constantly, often in sheets, across our yard.

We could smell it in our house and couldn't get away from it. Being outside for minutes resulted in a smoke smell in our hair and on our clothes.

Research showed us the negative health impact we experienced from smoke is well documented and dangerous.

Our neighbor raised his stack, but he refused to talk when we showed smoke still going down into our yard.

For a year, we worked with the city government, attended meetings, educated, received neighborhood support to ban these units.

Now an ordinance protects people from OWB's. Our healthy air will be back! We thought.

City officials assured us the ordinance applied to all, but in September, they said our neighbor's unit was "grandfathered." No rules for him.

We offered to pay our neighbor's heat bill, buy a different furnace. Anything to enjoy our yard again, not to feel sick while home.

No reply.

Our four little Michigan grandchildren can't visit us there October-April. The smokestack is 14 feet from where we used to sled in the backyard.

Can't rake leaves, can't shovel snow. In smoke, your heart pounds too hard. You feel dizzy. No one seems to care.

We're selling this future retirement house to avoid smoke.

Now we live in Illinois and visit Michigan in the summer.

People need to understand the harm of what breathing wood smoke does to them, to children and to neighbors.


Jeanne Leaver
Lynn Center, Ill.