Cigarette smoke smell in the home? How to get rid of it
IF THESE WALLS COULD COUGH!!!
I confess.
For years my wife and I smoked cigarettes. We smoked inside the house, and in our cars.
We also rented our places to smokers as well.
I was the first to quit smoking, and my wife followed quite a few years later.
Obviously, the house had that “lived in” smokers smell, and once we became aware of the smell, it began to drive us both a little crazy. We were determined to make some changes.
Did you know that the cigarette smoke smell, after all, isn't just an aesthetic issue in your home. According to a study published in 2010, third-hand smoke (the carcinogenic toxins that cigarette smoke deposits on walls, floors, and dust) will linger for months after smokers move out, and expose nonsmoking new owners (especially children and pets) to unhealthy chemicals.
Cigarette smoke can pollute the indoor air quality (IAQ) in your home and cause conditions such a asthma, headaches, nausea, fatigue, and an increased risk for lung cancer.
And although we’re not planning on selling tomorrow, if you are, it’s important to note that according to one survey (an American one) said that in some cases, a house sold by a smoker can lower the value of a home by as much as 30%. That might be true if the house is in Kansas, and it’s worth $150K, but I don’t think that a 30% difference is relevant for this area.
If you're planning on selling, you're not legally obligated to disclose that a home has been smoked in. Nonetheless, a strong smell will quickly clue in potential buyers, and could make your home harder to sell.
There are solutions, and it’s possible, with some hard work, to get that smoke smell out of a house. Here's what to do.
Air it out
Step one is to clear as much bad air out of the house as possible (and, obviously, stop smoking inside).
Step one means opening up all of your windows and letting in the fresh air is an easy step to rid your home of built-up pollutants, but obviously, it’s not usually that easy.
Including an air filter, attached to the furnace, or an in-room air filter, especially (a HEPA model with a charcoal odor filter) help eliminate dust and particulate matter. Use a dehumidifier in rooms with heavy smoke smell will dry out the air. Moist air holds odors and particulates, and will make the smell more intense. Drying out the air will help the odors to dissipate.
Deal with the drywall
Drywall tends to soak up any odors it's subjected to on a regular basis,. Replacing the drywall in your home isn't really an option unless you have lots of renovation bucks! Instead, take the easier way — thoroughly wash your walls and ceiling, removing any dust from door frames, baseboards, fan blades, window frames, and light fixtures. Clean with vinegar or, even better, a mixture of trisodium phosphate (TSP) and water. You might be a little surprised (or a LOT) surprised to find how yellow the water becomes. Don’t forget the kitchen cupboards as well. It’s not just cigarette smoke that will be removed, but common kitchen odors and fat that clings to the cabinets.
If the tobacco smells persists, you might have to repaint the room, using a sealing, odor-killing primer like Kilz. Without a sealing primer, the scent will eventually start to seep back in through the paint. Don't forget to repaint the ceiling, too, since it will have had the most exposure to smoke. We ended up doing all of that, including the ceilings, and that did the trick for us.
Clean the carpets
Carpeting is a notorious absorber of cigarette smoke and all odors. Wall-to-wall carpet can be helped by sprinkling baking soda or an odor-reducing product on the carpet, then vacuum. But the best practice here is to get the carpets professionally steam-cleaned. If the smell is horrible and is still there after this, you may have to consider removing and replacing them.
For wood or tile floors, a regular mopping should be sufficient, but if you're noticing the odors from the floor, try mopping with vinegar or the TSP mixture.
The wife likes to drop a few drops of lavender or essential oil into the water to make a sweet clean scent, but she has to let me smell it first. I have a sensitivity to many perfumey scents.
Examine your HVAC evaporator coil
If you have smokers in the home, the tobacco fumes can be pulled into the evaporator coil of your HVAC unit. Odor and particulates permeate the coil and blasts the smell of old cigarettes into your home every time you run the air conditioner.
Turn off your AC or heater to clean the coils. Locate them by removing the access panel from your HVAC unit. Check your owners manual to locatethem. Use compressed air, a mixture of mild detergent and water, or a brush, to clean them. If the coils still seem dirty, then contact an HVAC pro to give them a serious scrub. It’s always a good idea to go with the pros.
Clean your air ducts
HVAC asidei t's also possible the ductwork in your home has never been cleaned. Ducts can also be coated in tar, nicotine, and other stinky smoke byproducts from years of exposure.
Air duct cleaning is something you'll have to hire a pro to do, but if you get a stale smell when the air conditioner or heater turns on, it's a must.
Clean or change the drapes, blinds or windows.
Window treatments will allow smoke smell and dust to permeate. For fabric draperies, either wash them in the washing machine or steam clean them, depending on the fabric. Again, the pros will help you here.
Blinds can be cleaned with a vinegar or TSP solution; but if they really reek, they might need to be replaced. You might also need to clean the windows themselves since smoke can leave a film that smells particularly bad when warmed by sunlight.
Change your light bulbs and clean lighting fixtures
The heat generated by light bulbs can fuse yucky dust and participants onto the glass of the lamp and the insight of light fixtures. If you notice an increase in odor when you turn the lights on, replace the bulbs and thoroughly clean the light fixtures.
Remove furniture
In almost every case, your furniture is coming with you when you move, but if the fabric on your favorite sofa has absorbed a lot of smoke smell over the years, it will still create a problem when you're trying to show your home. Consider using other furniture or just getting rid of specially offensive pieces.
Think twice about air fresheners
The commercials on TV talk about “nose blind” Well, that’s true, but throwing more smells into the mix isn’t always a good idea. If you're worried about smoke smells turning off potential home buyers, does it make sense that you would want to load up on scented candles or air fresheners? Unfortunately, this screams to the buyer that "something in the house smells bad."
Even if you've managed to rid the house of any evidence of any inhabitants' smoking habits, being hit by a wall of artificial flower smell is a red flag that will make many people scrutinize your home's smells even harder. With any strong households odors, from cigarettes to pets, it's always best to clear it out rather than cover it up.