Breathe Better in Healthy Homes
There has been growing concern about the impact of secondhand smoke exposure on people who live in multi-unit housing settings, such as apartment complexes, duplexes, condominiums, and public housing facilities. Secondhand smoke from one unit in a multi-unit housing complex can seep into an adjoining unit through shared air spaces or shared ventilation systems.
New Hampshire law protects residents from exposure to secondhand smoke in most workplaces, however, it does not protect people from exposure in their multi-unit homes. Breathe New Hampshire has joined with other organizations around the state to begin educating landlords and property managers with the goal of having them implement voluntary no-smoking policies.
Maintaining smoke-free housing units is legal, economical, popular with most tenants, and healthy. This section of our website presents information for landlords and tenants with sample documents to use for setting up your own smoke-free policy.
Effective Signage is Key
If you want an area to be tobacco-free, you need to communicate that to tenants, employees and visitors. Research has established that signage is one of the best ways to let people know it is not acceptable to smoke or vape in a certain area. If you would like to produce your own custom signs, please take the following guidelines into consideration.Signage should be simple, clear and easy to see at some distance.
Design
- Signage should incorporate the international no-smoking symbol
- Signage should indicate that smoke-free has the force of law, where applicable
- Designs, language and sizes should be standardized to suit a number of purposes
Placement
- Clear guidelines on how and where to use signage should be available to building managers, business and restaurant owners
- Smaller signs may be used in interiors, especially places such as stairwells, lobbies, laundry rooms or public congregation areas
Distribution
- Clear guidelines on how and where to use signage should be available to building managers
- Many tobacco-free campaigns have found success by providing guidelines and high resolution signage available for download on a website, so that those responsible for signage can access and print their own signage to comply with smoke-free policies.