BiggerPockets

I am looking at a condo and the owners have smoked heavily in it for years. When you walk in you get hit with a strong cigarette smell and you can see some residue on the walls from it. Also, the unit is carpeted so I would imagine the carpets are saturated with it.

If I buy the place and rip out all the carpeting, clean the walls and ceiling and completely re-paint, will this eliminate all traces of the smoke? Is there anything else that can/should be done? Any particular product/cleaner recommendations?

Thanks!

This thread should give you some help:

http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/67/topics/78889-smoker-rehab-keys-to-success-with-tobacco-smoke--before-after-pics

A gallon of Odor Out in an average livingroom, sprayed everywhere and wiped down worked pretty good.

We've had to deal with cigarette odors and stains on several occasions.

Wash down what you can, and get a good primer that is supposed to help with odors as well as the stains. I have been also known to keep baking soda and coffee in tins sitting in various rooms to help remove odor... these get changed frequently. Carpet, if it is as bad as you say, will likely have to be removed... and priming the floor might be an option if the sub-floor too is odor filled. Open the windows if you can and let the fresh air blow in too.

Others have mentioned ozone machines before. I have no experience with these so can't comment on their value.

I do not rent to smokers. Even if they say they "only smoke outside", the smoke will come in with them. Also, who's to say on those days that's it's near-zero degrees outside that they just won't light up inside because they don't want to freeze their butts off (pun) smoking outside?

There's a product called "Awesome" that they sell at the dollar store. Good for getting rid of nicotine stains. As far as odor, paint and carpet will help. You will also want to vacuum every heat vent, tops of doors, and every other nook and cranny.

By the time you wash the walls, clean the carpets and wait to see if it still stinks, you may lose a month's rent, so often it is better just to re-paint and re-carpet. Or, just market to a smoker! They won't even notice the smell!

Originally posted by John McCombs:
By the time you wash the walls, clean the carpets and wait to see if it still stinks, you may lose a month's rent, so often it is better just to re-paint and re-carpet. Or, just market to a smoker! They won't even notice the smell!

tha's exactly what we did
the SFH came from friends who moved to NC but didn't want to go thro an agent. So they did it FSBO but we did the showings etc for a % because they just left.
It was listed it @ $154,000 & reeked of years of smoking but they refused to spend any $ on cleanup. I could barely spend the 1 hour open house time we did for them.
The buyer @ $144,500 was a divorced, retired 65 yr old GM worker with a 2 pack a day habit. The amazing thing is he is still alive????

We actually just went through this ourselves last week. Our renter passed away from lung cancer believe it or not and our condo smelled like a European night club. We started to wash down the walls as that was much of the advice on BP, but that was labor intensive and didn't do much so we decided to literally repainted the entire place. We did not use primer on the walls, but it was an absolute must for the ceilings. we ripped out the carpet and put new carpet in and after the paint we were in good shape. Odor is completely gone and we just rented it to a single non-smoking mother who couldn't even tell a smoker had lived there.

Good luck

Nilium is a wonderful product that you add to your paint. It will get rid of all kinds of odors and it's cheap.

Here's a link to the post I did for BP that has some other suggestions.

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2012/11/5/getting-rid-tough-odors/

Sharon