Fort Wayne residents can still smoke in their own homes, at least for now.

But that right doesn't necessarily apply to apartment-dwellers - as Ron and Andrea Jones discovered when Willow Creek Crossing refused to renew the couple's lease because of their “excessive” tobacco use.

Just another example of how the “nanny state” is trampling individual rights in its quest to protect Americans from themselves, they say. I've made the same argument when writing about Fort Wayne's year-old ban on smoking in bars and restaurants - which is why the Joneses presumed I would be sympathetic to their plight.

But it's not nearly that simple in this case, which joins a growing list of rent-related disputes nationwide in which the legitimate interests of smokers, nonsmokers and property owners collide, inevitably producing at least one unhappy party.

“There was nothing against smoking in our lease, and we lived there for a year and a half before anybody complained about us,” said Andrea, 52, who moved into the 582-unit complex on Lower Huntington Road near Waynedale with her 65-year-old husband, Ron, in August 2006.

The Joneses paid $550 a month for the two-bedroom apartment and enjoyed living there - until they received a letter from management in March informing them that neighbors had complained about smoke filtering into their apartments and asking the Joneses to do something about it, such as buying an air filter.

But the Joneses live on fixed incomes because of their disabilities, many of which are aggravated if not caused by smoking, so they chose a less-expensive route: They opened the windows and doors.

It wasn't enough.

In April the Joneses received another letter informing them their lease would not be renewed when it expired in September. They moved about a mile west last month, renting a two-bedroom house on Baer Road. Their indoor smoking won't bother neighbors, but the cost of moving bothered the Joneses: The rent is about $100 more per month, not counting utilities. And the moving van cost nearly $1,000.

“We hadn't planned on moving for years, and this has put us seriously behind the (financial) eight ball,” Ron Jones said.

So did Willow Creek Crossing's $1,000 bill to clean, paint and carpet their old apartment to eliminate the lingering smell of tobacco - a bill that turned an expected and much-needed deposit refund of several hundred dollars into a net $450 expense Jones said he won't pay because he doubts their smoking caused that much damage, if any.

“We cleaned that apartment before we left,” Jones said as he sat in his living room that was tidy, but smelled of smoke.

Is this a clear-cut violation of “smokers' rights,” as the Joneses insist? Their lease, after all, did not prohibit smoking in their apartment. So by what right did Willow Creek management essentially evict people even management admits were otherwise good tenants?

Property Supervisor Rose Newman-Clevenger said Willow Creek Crossing's lease - which the Joneses signed - allows the management to act when one tenant causes “unreasonable” hardship for another. One neighbor, she said, complained the Joneses' smoke somehow came through the wall and into her closet, tainting her clothes.

And the tobacco odor in the apartment immediately above the Joneses' was so strong it could not be rented. As a result, management cleaned and installed an air filter and used the apartment as a model for prospective tenants - but the still-present odor wasn't exactly good for business.

“This is unfortunate. We don't want to lose anyone. We're in the business of renting apartments, (but) I have never experienced anything like this in 14 years at Willow Creek Crossing” said Newman-Clevenger, who is also president of the Apartment Association of Fort Wayne and Northeast Indiana. “This is becoming a huge issue (for apartment owners).

True enough. Calabasas, Calif., introduced an ordinance last year requiring at least 80 percent of apartments to be designated smoke-free by 2012 - a trend that surely will grow. And in Boston three years ago, a jury ruled a couple could be evicted from their apartment for heavy smoking, even though smoking was allowed in their lease. Newman-Clevenger said apartment owners would lose rental flexibility if they reserved some buildings for smokers and others for nonsmokers, but said Willow Creek has considered going entirely smoke-free.

“Smokers have no rights,” she said.

No, they don't. Nonsmokers don't either, really. Property owners do, which is why I have only so much sympathy for the Joneses, but enthusiastically support the right of bar owners to allow smoking should they choose to do so.

“I know smoking is killing me,” said Ron Jones, who with Andrea comprises an ironic poster couple for the anti-tobacco movement. He is a former warehouse manager who can't work because of hip, heart and lung problems. Andrea was an X-ray technician who now battles asthma and depression.

It isn't Willow Creek Crossing's job to convince them or anybody else to stop smoking. But faced with the choice of exposing nonsmoking tenants to the unwanted and potentially harmful effects of tobacco or losing the Joneses, the complex's management made a financially sensible and humane decision it had every right to make.

For now.