The great smell mystery...solved....FINALLY!!!

Yes, I'm posting. It's been awhile and I'm not out of ideas, I just haven't taken the time in quite awhile. As some of you might know, I've been having issues with coming back to my apartment and finding a less than desirable smell in it which subsequently resulted in running to my sliding glass door, flinging it open and quickly packing whatever I can think of and then leaving as quickly as possible before feeling like I'm going to pass out. This was rather frustrating as I pay a rather significant amount to live in a fairly nice place and it's I have been unable to sleep there on multiple occasions because I cannot live in a place where the air causes my throat to become sore, my eyes to get itchy and then I get migraine all the while feeling like I can't take breathe deep enough.

I couldn't find a pattern to the problem, but it seemed to be coming out my heating vents. But only sometimes. I'm sure the manager loves me now because they've checked for carbon monoxide twice, maintenance serviced my furnace, they also had the furnace company come out and service the furnace. Maintenance checked my water heater, my washer and dryer, my stove and my dishwasher, thinking maybe one of them had a problem or was leaking something causing the smell. Then, they also had the water heater company come out to check that again as well. However, no luck. All this on and off over the course of about a month and a half. During the first couple checks, no one could even smell anything remotely close to what I was smelling which could only be described as someone funneled the smoke from their fireplace into my apartment without the actual smoke, just the smell.

Finally, we have a solution. Apparently a guy who lives on the third floor decided that his food wasn't tasty enough when he used his gas grill, so he added wood chips to it (he wins moron of the month). On breezy days, the smoke from the grill would blow up to the roof (directly above his floor) and into my air intake. When my furnace would come on, I would be subject to the lovely aftereffects of his grill pumped directly into my apartment. I've been told he won't be doing that anymore. I don't know how much money my apartment management spent on having things serviced that didn't need to be, but I'm sure they weren't pleased. We aren't allowed to have charcoal grills at the complex, so I'm sure that wood-burning grills aren't acceptable either.

Hmm...we did get a notice that someone started a fire on their balcony...I wonder if it was him? Anyway, I will hopefully be breathing (easier) at my apartment from now on.