We are due to be moving shortly, to a tied house that goes with my husband's job. There is a very strong smell of cigarette smoke in the new property, and I'm really concerned about how it will impact my asthma. Obviously, once the current resident moves their furniture out, hopefully a lot of the smell will go with it, but I know a lot will still cling to the carpets, curtains and paintwork.
Has anyone had experience of trying to eradicate cigarette smoke from a property? Obviously, we can request that the curtains and carpets are professionally cleaned, but I'm worried that won't be enough. Any suggestions/advice for dealing with the smell will be much appreciated!
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Mandevilla
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Will that work? I'm hearing horror stories of people who have had to spend £1,000s getting their walls professionally 'sealed' since the smell kept seeping through ordinary paintwork.
At least it's not winter (officially ⛈☔⛄) so hopefully you can have the windows wide open whenever possible Mandevilla. The only other thing I can think of is an air purifier to use in the room you're in the most. Good luck with it all and the move
Edit, I just thought of wallpaper, if there is any stripping it off & starting again would help
Sorry to hear this. I'm guessing it would be too difficult to back out and look for another property? There must be some professional way of removing this. Unsure if air purifiers would help? At least there is no longer any smoke in the house, but the lingering smell can be a trigger, even if its phycological - I can definitely relate to this. But hopefully the smells will fade in time. I would certainly be looking at removing all carpets and going with wooden floors if you can though. I only have carpet on my stairs, but looking to remove this asap. Hope you find a solution.
One can cover carpets, w/o having to remove them. I did this in one of my rental flats. I used 2 mm-thick polypropylene sheets and taped them with kapton tape along the walls (cost was about $100 per room). It looked horrible. But it's better to be able to breathe.
This happened to me back in 2018, and every now and again I get a slight smell of it. My decorator used some kind of sealant when painting the ceiling which helped. I washed all the paintwork down before decorating too. It does take time though.
Cigarette smoke is the worst ! And one of my main triggers. This old house was stinking from chain smokers, they hadn't even cleaned it. Even years later we would find tar from smoke seeping down the walls, yuk!I pulled down every ceiling I could, redecorated everything, new carpets etc but it was a long job. Remember smoke rises so start at the top. They really should de stink it for you, you may have to insist but if you have to diy I'd googly it to find the best stuff to use, lots on the market. Good luck! 🤞P.S my house now smells of flowers! 🤗
YouTube has a few vlogs on how to get rid of nicotine stained paintwork and how to deodorise a home. Walls & ceilings have to be treated and deep cleaned, floors too. Every surface will have absorbed the tar and nicotine, so painting over it just doesn't work. My nephew had this issue with his current home and couldn't afford a professional service so did it all himself. It took way longer than expected, but he was very pleased with the results.
The tied accommodation tenancy agreement should stipulate if the property has to be handed back as it was when the tenants moved in. So they could be responsible for the deep clean if they're responsible for the smoking damage. Or the employer may be responsible for making their property fit for human habitation. Definitely worth checking out the legal position. Citizens Advice or a charity like Shelter could advise on this.
When we left our office complex to move into a brand new building, we took a peak at the old smoking room. It was absolutely grim; years of nicotine and tar had discoloured everything to the point that the magnolia walls were now a very dirty dark yellow and the "air" smelt toxic. I hope you can rid your new home of this stuff and enjoy your new adventure.
My colleagues at a National lab in the US study the effects of cigarette smoke indoors. When I asked them a similar question they told me the only way is to coat the walls with aluminum foil tape. So this is what I did in my place. I also coated carpets with aluminum foil.
A relative of mine had a husband who smoked heavily for decades in their house. When he passed, she had the walls stripped down to the bricks and the floors replaced. Only then the smell went away. This was a multi-K/several-month project.
Combined with the fact that this place has carpets (which are bad news for asthma anyway, smoking or not), I would look for another place to live.
A long while ago now I lived in a tied cottage whose previous tenant smoked.
The estate cleaned the place, redecorated then gave the premises a good airing. Everything turned out fine. So maybe this is something your husband’s new employer offers as standard. I now live elsewhere, during lockdown my expensive German vacuum cleaner with all its anti-allergy filters and pledges for cleaner air broke. I replaced it with another brand named after an extremely aggressive fish. Oh my goodness, the amount of gunk it sucked out of my ‘clean’ carpets was shocking. It has paid for itself in terms of not buying specialist ant-allergy dust bags and I breathe so much better. Hope everything goes well for you.
hi Mandela I had the same experience with the bungalow I live in. The couple who lived here were smokers and although all the furniture had gone the walls ceilings and floors were discoloured by the smoke and nicotine I spent almost 5 months washing down the emulsions walls with sugar soap after that I had to wash the carpets with my vax machine you can by detergents now that kill any bad odours after which I could still smell cigarettes every now and again so I did most of the decorating myself as husband was in hospital. Eventually had to get the kitchen and bedroom decorated bedroom carpets had to be replaced as they were really bad and used aroma therapy oil as prays to freshen up and left windows open every day for a few hours. Takes a while to get rid of the smell I also had my air purifying machines which helped me a lot. They had 7 cats and one dog so had the cat smells to deal with too when taking out the old kitchen found dried poo run down back of cupboards which is why she had air freshner pots all over the house so to disguise the smells. Now my house is clean and naturally fresh. There are companies you can employ to deep clean the house before you move in. Good luck.
Thank you everyone - this has given me hope that we will be able to deal with the smell. My husband is going to request redecorating and clean carpets before moving. We'll see how we get on.
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