Second hand cigarette smoke drifting into your apartment can threaten your health — especially if you suffer from asthma, bronchitis, emphysema or heart disease. Until recently, choices for smoke free apartments have been almost non-existent.
  Surveys done in other parts of the country indicate almost half of all apartment dwellers are impacted by smoke from neighbors. Now the Kitsap County Health District is gathering information to protect tenant health and identify the market for apartments free from secondhand smoke. The health district has received $75,000 from the State Department of Health to encourage smoke free apartment options in Kitsap and Pierce Counties.

The goal is to educate apartment owners about the demand for smoke-free units and encourage landlords to offer that option for tenants. The first step is to identify local rental owners who have policies in place to insure clean air. Those complexes will be listed on-line in a Smoke Free Apartment Registry similar to the District’s Fresh Air Restaurant Guide. Information gathered will be disseminated to the apartment industry and publicized to potential renters in the 2003 Smoke Free Apartment Registry. To qualify to be listed, apartments must set aside at least one third of their units as a non-smoking block.

To measure market demand, the District will have eight hundred Kitsap and Pierce County tenants surveyed by phone to determine how many have experienced secondhand smoke infiltrating their units. The random sample of renters will be questioned on how much they are bothered by smoke and whether they would choose smoke free housing if available.

A similar survey in Minnesota found that 34 percent of renters would be willing to pay more to live in a smoke free building, and a majority were willing to pay up to $50 dollars a month more to live in apartments where smoking was banned.

For more information or to include local apartments on the registry, contact Barbara Smithson, Secondhand Smoke Coordinator, Kitsap County Health District, 360-337-5246, ext. 6292.