Excessive or unlawful use of one’s property to the extent of unreasonable annoyance or inconvenience to a neighbor or to the public.
Unreasonable and substantial interference with a neighbour’s use or enjoyment of land.
in 1989, Canada's Supreme Court, in Tock v. St. John's 2 SCR 1181 (also published at canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/1989/1989canlii15/1989canlii15.html), held that:
"Nuisances are caused by an act or omission, whereby a person is unlawfully annoyed, prejudiced or disturbed in the enjoyment of land.... (N)uisance may take a variety of forms, ranging from actual physical damage to land to interference with the health, comfort or convenience of the owner or occupier of land."
Test: what would be tolerated by the ordinary occupier.
The standard is the ordinary man, which means that abnormal sensitivities may prevent a claim if the nuisance would not have otherwise unreasonably interfered with an ordinary occupier (eg. perfume).
Nor would it be necessary to prove negligence on the part of the defendant (nuisance is not a branch of the law of negligence).
Nuisance is an actionable tort.
Damages are often indirect (as opposed to trespass where the harm is direct by the tort-feasor).
Examples: noise from a go-kart business; smell from a slaughter-house; dust from a saw mill; smoke.
It is a doctrine well established in the common law, having been described by William Blackstone, in 1756, as:
"Nuisance or annoyance signifies any thing that worketh hurt, inconvenience or damages. Nuisances are of two kinds: public or common nuisances, which affect the public, and are annoyance to all the king's subjects; ... and private nuisances which ... may be defined (as) any thing done to the hurt or annoyance of the lands, tenements or hereditaments of another."