Bay of Plenty Times
  • Bay of Plenty Times home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Sport
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Sport

Locations

  • Coromandel & Hauraki
  • Katikati
  • Tauranga
  • Mount Maunganui
  • Pāpāmoa
  • Te Puke
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Thames
  • Tauranga
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Premium
Home / Bay of Plenty Times

Comment: When cooking a barbecue makes you the neighbour from hell

Sonya Bateson
By Sonya Bateson
Regional content leader, Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post·Bay of Plenty Times·
9 Sep, 2019 10:14 PM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

What's worse than smelling someone else's food cooking? Complaining about it to the world. Photo / file

What's worse than smelling someone else's food cooking? Complaining about it to the world. Photo / file

COMMENT

How do you know if someone's a vegan?

Don't worry, they'll tell you.

Or so the joke goes. Vegans, crossfitters, hybrid drivers - they're better than you and they want you to know it.

What's the point of living a wholesome life if you can't brag about it?

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

#goals #inspo #livingmybestlife

It was the joke of the day when vegan Cilla Carden took her Perth neighbours to court claiming they deliberately let the smell of their barbecue and cooking fish waft into the backyard of her meat-free home.

Within hours, a Facebook event was inviting people to a barbecue at Carden's house. Thousands of people RSVPed, prompting Carden's lawyer to make a statement warning that anyone who attended would face criminal charges.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The mockery came from around the globe.

It reminds me of a similar incident here in the Bay a few years ago, when some residents living by Pilot Bay complained about smells wafting into their homes from public barbecues.

They, too, faced ridicule - albeit not to the same global extent.

It begs the question - how far is too far?

Everyone's heard a story about a neighbour from hell. They're rude, inconsiderate, loud, obnoxious - that is, according to the storyteller.

Ask the so-called neighbour from hell, and they'll probably give you their own version of events in which the storyteller is the true baddie.

First neighbour: "That Carol next door wakes me up at 7am every Saturday morning when she mows her lawn - what's a man got to do to get a sleep-in around here?".

Second neighbour: "That Jim next door wouldn't know a tidy lawn if he saw it - the slob only mows his once a month, and it's bringing down the whole neighbourhood!"

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Who's really in the wrong? The answer could go either way, depending which side of the fence you're on.

On the face of it, complaining about barbecue smells is hilarious - nimbyism at its finest.

But we all want to be the kings of our own castles, and what's normal to some is offensive to others.

Sometimes we need to take a deep breath and assess why were are offended.

Is that smell really, truly, honestly worth getting mad about?

Or will you - and those around you - be better off by letting it go and making an allowance for people different than yourself?

At the very least, getting over it won't make you the butt of a worldwide joke.

Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from Bay of Plenty Times

Bay of Plenty Times

'Sustained period of cruelty': Starship doctor slates child protection agency failings

Bay of Plenty Times

Eastern BoP mayors unite against council amalgamation

Bay of Plenty Times

'Mind-blowing': Chef's two-ingredient meringue breakthrough


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Bay of Plenty Times

'Sustained period of cruelty': Starship doctor slates child protection agency failings
Bay of Plenty Times

'Sustained period of cruelty': Starship doctor slates child protection agency failings

An almost identical case occurred two months after Malachi's death, the doctor said.

16 Jul 05:15 AM
Eastern BoP mayors unite against council amalgamation
Bay of Plenty Times

Eastern BoP mayors unite against council amalgamation

15 Jul 10:57 PM
'Mind-blowing': Chef's two-ingredient meringue breakthrough
Bay of Plenty Times

'Mind-blowing': Chef's two-ingredient meringue breakthrough

15 Jul 09:44 PM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Bay of Plenty Times e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Bay of Plenty Times
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP