Removing Cigarette Smoke Odor (Tips, Suggestions, Help?)

Before I moved up to live with DH, he allowed a cousin to move in with him as a roommate while she was trying to get back on her feet after a bad breakup. This cousin was a smoker, but agreed to smoke only outside. After living there for a little over a month he started noticing a mild smoke smell in her bedroom but dismissed it as residual odor from her clothes. After she had been there 3 months he confronted her about the worstening odor and she adamantly denied smoking in the house. At 6 months we asked her to leave because (she had stopped paying rent and) the awful smell was noticable outside her room in the hall. We are both non-smokers.

She moved out a few weeks ago and we promptly cleaned the room top to bottom, treated the carpet with febreeze and vacuuming, aired it out etc. We though the room was smelling better until we went away for a few days and when we came home we noticed we smelled a faint smoke smell just walking in the door.

Tonight we are visiting family and noticed some of our clothes smell like smoke. These clothes have been in drawers in our room since before she left! We realized we have a problem. DH is concerned for our property value, I am just concerned with a stinky house! Any advice, tips or tricks on how to get rid of the smell?

Repaint ... baking soda for the carpet( make sure to vaccuum up throughly)... Air purifier

get a bowl and fill it full of white vinegar. set it in the room and shut the door for a couple of weeks. vinegar is great for getting rid of unpleasant odors.
i've never tried it on smoke but know people that have said it works. one of my cats had peed on the carpet in my second bedroom. after cleaning with enzyme cleaner it still smelled strongly of catpee. i set a bowl of vinegar in the room til it evaprated completely, about a month and the cat pee odor completely disappeared.
if your clothes smell like smoke hang them in a small closet with a bowl of vinegar and shut the door for a week. that really works.

My last house caught on fire one time and we had a bad residual smell from that fire. When I called a professional cleaning service for advice, they suggested a product called Mean Green to wash down the walls. It worked like a charm on hard surfaces. We didn't have carpet in that house, but I suspect a good shampooing would help. I washed all of our clothes, rugs, bedding, etc.

wash everything at the same time-carpet, drapes, etc.

repaint the walls/ceiling with Kilz primer paint

Bed-take it outside and put it on its smallest side. Spray it with vinegar and let it sit in the sun as long as you can.

Leave the windows open a much as you can with the screen out.

Empty the room and take all of the "hard" stuff-dresser, etc outside and wipe it down the vinegar as well. Take all of the drawers out and let it air out good.

A lot of work but it will pay off in the end.

Good luck!

Kim

I got a pressboard bookcase on Freecycle, got it to use in my closet as a shoe-box holder. Didn't realize until I got it home that the folks I got it from were smokers. It was really stinky.

My dad suggested I take a dryer sheet, and hang it in the closet over the bookcase using a skirt hanger. It didn't take long at all, and now the bookcase has no more smell to it, and my clothes hanging in the same closet never smelled like smoke, either.

Just a thought.

She was smoking inside. My BIL smokes outside and his room doesn't smell like cigarettes - he also knows how much trouble he'd be in if he even dared try smoking inside.

Shampoo the carpet. Then try baking soda on it if there's any smell left. The Mean Green is a very good product for removing nicotine and smoke off of walls, just make sure you open the windows to the room while using it.

Since she was smoking inside it got into you air vents. You'll have to get the duct work cleaned out if you want the rest of the house to smell better. Change all filters, too.

I had to deal with this after living with Mom all my life...that smell just permeates everything, doesn't it? If the items are washable/wipable, try white vinegar. I wash clothing and cat bedding in water, with about 2-3 cups of vinegar thrown in the washer. You may have to do this more than once, but once usually removes odors, in my experience. Baking soda also works, but IMHO, vinegar is stronger (more acidic, perhaps?), and works much better.

I find that smoke smell in wood is nearly impossible to remove entirely. DH's parents gave us an antique piano years ago. The former owners were smokers. Even though MIL stripped and refinished the wood, I still get a faint whiff of smoke when I walk past it. (And she bought and refinished the piano about 20 years ago--that's how embedded the odor gets!). I discovered that using a lot of those Windex-type glass wipes really helped remove most of the smell--I seldom smell it now, after 1 good wiping session a few months ago. Test on an hidden area of the furniture, to be safe.

Febreeze tends to just temporarily cover up the odor, in my opinion (and I always associate the scent with smoke smell!). Vinegar and baking soda neutralize the odor. Of course, if you hate the smell of vinegar, your're stuck!

For walls, etc.: paint them with Kilz Paint primer. This can be also be used on floors, such as concrete, etc. if you're covering them with another type of flooring. When we bought the house, the former owner's dog had pooped on the carpets, but it didn't show up, nor smell, after she had them professionally cleaned. However, soon after we moved in, big stains started popping up. I removed the carpet to install laminate. Before I did the laminate, I rolled on 2 coats of the Kilz. It does have a mighty smell, but, when painted/covered over, you no longer smell it, nor the nasty odors it covers. Great stuff. I've used it a few times.

I don't notice the smell at home I guess because I have gotten used to it. But we are visiting mother in law this weekend and my clothes smell like smoke and its making me gag. I told DH I don't care WHAT he does that smell HAS to go. We are going to have a ompany come clean the carpets and ducts, and deodorize the mattresses. Also going to try the mean green and kilz. In the meantime I will try baking soda and vinegar. We discussed having Servepro come out and do a full restoration. I can't stand smoke odor.

also, there's a new paint on the market that's supposed to help w/odor elimination: http://dutchboy.com/press/2008/Refre...ease/index.jsp

Buy a bottle of AtmosKlear, available online. It got skunk out of my mom's car, leaving new car odor (the car was 5 years old!)

Did you wash the walls? Use something that really cuts greasy stuff, like dish soap, or TSP if you need to go stronger. You might be able to get away with not repainting if you get the walls clean enough. The nicotine really sticks to them.

I think a smoker used to live in my house. Not the last owners...I know they don't smoke. So it had to be at least 10+ years ago, but when it's humid I can still smell the tobacco. Ugh.

It's not easy to get rid of cigarette residue, and it's best to take it on full force.
Wash the walls with a sponge mop and an antibacterial/bleach dish soap, maybe twice if necessary according to how yellow the sponge rinses out. Then prime the walls before painting, yes this is necessary! Especially in closets, doors, around frames and floor boards. Carpet is the hardest to clean, if you can replace it, you should. The floor underneath will need several cleanings. If it is hardwood, Murphy's Oil Soap.
The biggest test is what your sponge pics up when cleaning a wall or floor, yellow water is second hand smoke residue. If you choose to keep the carpet, have it professionally cleaned.

TSP cleaner works really well on washing walls. We had renters that were not supposed to smoke. TSP took all of the yellow gunge off the walls. The ceiling we used Kilz primer it worked perfectly. To clean the carpets we rented a rug cleaner and used vingar it took away the smoke odor in the carpet.

The all out war against cigarette smoke began this weekend. We opened up all the windows and took all the mattresses and pillows outside to be sprayed down and aired out. We cleaned the walls with simple green which is our favorite degreaser. We wiped down all the wood furniture and the leather couch and put boxes of baking soda everywhere. We treated the carpet with baking soda and vacuumed it back out. We pulled all of our clothes out of the dressers and closets and washed them with baking soda (thank you colossal size washing machine!) and lined the drawers with dryer sheets before putting them back up. We cleaned the laminate flooring with its special cleaner stuff we have. We still aren't done.

DH is supposed to call a company today to have our ducts and carpets cleaned. We intend to take the furniture back outside when they come and try deodorizing them again just to be sure. If this doesn't work we will proceed with painting and possibly carpet replacement, but we are trying to prevent that as the carpet and new paint was just put in last year.

Thanks for the tips all.