Buying a house that belonged to a smoker can come with an unpleasant surprise. The walls may have fresh paint, the rooms may look clean, and yet that unmistakable cigarette smell can still be hanging around.
That’s because smoke doesn’t stay neatly on the surface of the walls. It can settle into ceilings, carpet, doors, cabinets, window coverings, and other materials throughout the house, which means painting alone may simply cover the problem temporarily.
If the smell keeps coming back, here are some of the areas worth tackling.
Wash the Walls First
Before reaching for another gallon of paint, give the walls a thorough cleaning to remove as much built-up residue as possible. A heavy-duty cleaner appropriate for the surface, such as a TSP-based cleaner, can help prepare walls before they’re primed and repainted.
Use an Odor-Blocking Primer
Once the walls are clean and dry, an odor- and stain-blocking primer can create a barrier between lingering residue and your new paint. Shellac-based products such as Zinsser B-I-N are commonly used for particularly stubborn smoke stains and odors.
Don’t Forget the Ceilings
You can scrub and repaint every wall and still leave a huge smoke-covered surface untouched right above you. Clean and prime the ceilings as well, particularly in rooms where the previous owners smoked heavily.
Pull Up Old Carpet
Carpet and padding can absorb years of odors, so sometimes replacement makes more sense than repeatedly trying to deodorize them. If the house still has carpet from when the smoker lived there, consider removing it and inspecting what is underneath.
Remove Old Window Coverings
Curtains, fabric shades, and even blinds can hold onto stale cigarette odors long after the room has been cleaned. Removing old window treatments gives you one less potential source working against all that cleaning and painting.
Related: Designers Are Skipping Curtains—Here’s What They’re Using to Dress Up Windows Instead
Replace the HVAC Filter
An old HVAC filter can be an easily overlooked source of odor, especially if the smell becomes more noticeable whenever the heat or air conditioning turns on. Replace the filter early in the cleanup process rather than allowing the system to continue circulating air through a dirty one.
Check the Ductwork
If changing the HVAC filter doesn’t make a difference, the ductwork may be worth inspecting. A professional can determine whether cleaning is actually necessary rather than automatically paying for duct cleaning throughout the entire house.
Scrub Doors and Trim
Baseboards, doors, doorframes, molding, and other painted surfaces can accumulate the same residue as your walls. Give these areas a thorough cleaning and consider sealing and repainting them when odors remain.
Clean Inside Cabinets and Closets
Don’t stop cleaning at the surfaces you can immediately see. Smoke can settle inside kitchen cabinets, drawers, closets, bathroom vanities, and other enclosed areas that may release an unpleasant smell every time they’re opened.
Pay Attention to Bathroom Doors
Steam and humidity can sometimes make old residue on doors and other surfaces much more noticeable. If a bathroom suddenly smells smoky after a hot shower, the door, trim, ceiling, or cabinetry may deserve another round of cleaning and sealing.
Clean Anything That Moves Air
Bathroom exhaust fans, ceiling fans, range hoods, portable fans, and vents can all collect years of dust and residue. Cleaning these areas prevents old grime from continuing to circulate through rooms you’ve already worked hard to freshen.
Consider Replacing Heavily Contaminated Materials
Sometimes a surface is simply too contaminated to make restoration worthwhile. Drywall, flooring, doors, and other porous materials may eventually need replacement in a house with a particularly long or heavy history of indoor smoking.
Be Careful With Ozone Treatments
Ozone machines are sometimes used for serious odor remediation, but they’re not something to casually run while your family or pets are inside the house. Because ozone can be harmful to breathe, this is one area where professional treatment and careful safety precautions are worth considering.
Air Out the House
Open windows and doors whenever weather and security allow to increase ventilation while you’re working on the house. Fresh air won’t remove residue embedded in building materials, but it can be useful alongside cleaning, removal, sealing, and other remediation work.
Paint Should Come Last
The biggest mistake may be treating fresh paint as the solution rather than the final step. Clean away as much residue as possible, remove materials that can’t reasonably be saved, address potential HVAC and odor sources, seal problem surfaces with the appropriate primer, and then paint.
Cigarette smell can be stubborn because the source isn’t always something you can see. Tackling the house layer by layer gives you a much better chance of actually removing the odor instead of temporarily covering it up.
