De-smoking a house

[ArcticChicken]

This summer a house my aunt owns is coming vacant. The tenants have lived there for 50 years, and smoke like chimneys. We might not be able to afford a professional cleaning crew. Help?

[kansasgal]

Wash the walls with TSP or KilZ, place charcoal blocks EVERYWHERE you can, they are cheap and should take out a lot of the odor, replace the carpets because you won't be able to get the smell out.

Wash all of the woodwork with TSP or KilZ as well.

[DeltaSierra]

If you can - repaint the rooms too - I've learned from experience that just washing the walls won't cut it. Don't forget to paint ceilings too. Plus if you can - rent a steam cleaner for the rugs. Check the drapes - if its been 50 years I doubt they will be salvageable but you might be able to wash the smell out.

[Seshat]

Anything porous will hold a smell.

Use scent neutralisers, not scent coverers. Perfumed stuff is a coverer, not a neutraliser.

Vinegar, carb soda, and stuff called Nilodor are all neutralisers - I know there are others. Charcoal is also a scent neutraliser, but will stain things black so it's not suitable for washing with. It does, however, work well if you stick a chunk of it in a room and let it absorb everything that gets near it.

Soft furnishings will probably be oldish or old anyway, if they've been in the house for fifty years. Junk them, or if the solid parts are good, reupholster.

Wood, plywood, etc should be scoured clean with sandsoap or sugarsoap or some such, then washed with a scent neutraliser and aired. Once fully dry, repaint or repolish - the paint or polish should encapsulate whatever smoke smell is left.

Consider replacing insulation - after fifty years, insulation (and electrical wiring, for that matter) should probably be checked by a specialist anyway.

Tile grout (and some tiling) is also porous, enough so to potentially absorb smell. Don't wash those with sugar soap or sand soap: it's too abrasive; but do clean with a powerful tile-and-grout cleaner. Then wash with scent neutraliser; and paint over with grout whitener.

Consider replacing appliances that are more than ten years old. Anything younger, give the same thorough treatment to - and don't forget to clean BEHIND and UNDER all appliances, whether or not you're replacing them.

As patiokitty said, clean inside vents, and clean ceilings.

Look for every possible surface. Inside light fittings. Inside fan cases. Inside vents. If a fly or a cockroach can get there, so can smells.

Give everything the thorough cleaning treatment, and leave every window and door open (or flyscreened, but with the glass/wood open) to let fresh air get through the whole place.

AFTER you have everything totally clean, do your choice of:
* leave a small bottle of vanilla essence open in the house overnight
* Dry a bunch of lavender inside the house for a few days
* cut a lemon and leave the cut lemon inside overnight


Remove the scent-adder (vanilla, lavender, lemon) after a day or two; you want a subtle pleasant scent, not anything strong.

[BeenThereDoneThat]

We're going to have this issue when my MIL passes away. I don't think my FIL ever smoked, or he had quit long before I met him, but she is a chain smoker and they've been in this house since about 1978 (well, my FIL died in 2010 but you know what I mean). I'm not sure who's getting the house now, my hubby or my stepson...but I know my husband is thinking of razing it to the ground and just selling the property.

The house was built in 1962 and may just need too much rework to be worth it to us. It's a small 3-bedroom one-story house with a bathroom that consists of one tub/shower in its own little room, then one sink and one toilet for the master bedroom and another set for hallway access (two doors lead out of the tub room). The galley kitchen is very small and so is the living area which includes a small dining space. Being in Florida, there is no basement, nor a stand up attic (and of course it would be about 175F up there)...there is also an unfinished laundry/storage room and a converted one-car carport which my husband used as his living space after his divorce when he moved back in with his son (they had their own bedrooms too).

Yeah, it could be gutted and redone but I think maybe just destroying it would be better.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

If you can - repaint the rooms too - I've learned from experience that just washing the walls won't cut it. Don't forget to paint ceilings too. Plus if you can - rent a steam cleaner for the rugs. Check the drapes - if its been 50 years I doubt they will be salvageable but you might be able to wash the smell out.

This.

And the Kilz . . . when my bedroom was last repainted (4 years or so ago) the guy we hired washed all the walls down first with that stuff . . . and it was NOXIOUS for days afterwards.

But then I had everything replaced . . took shutters out and hung new curtains, had the inside of the closet repainted as well and new carpeting.

Sometimes the smell will wash out of fabrics, but sometimes not. Same with the yellowish-brown tinge that will cover fabrics as well. So with that, pretty much trial and error.

Once you can get the smell out of the house, you will notice a huge difference.

[ArcticChicken]

I am only familiar with kilz as a brand of primer?

[Maria]

Been there, and I see that others have already summed up a lot of what I've learned works. I just wanted to also add that if it's possible to take doors and fixtures outside to wash and leave them in the sunshine for a day, that seems to help. Anything plastic, like outlet covers, are likely better to replace instead of spending time and effort on them. Although, the more I think about 50 years of smoke... ehh, it may be worth considering the option of marketing it as a smoking-allowed rental!

And this only sort of pertains, but it helps keep the smell from coming home with me after I visit my smoking relatives, so I wanted to pass it along. I never take anything with me that can't be washed or thrown away, because it only takes 5-10 minutes of being in their houses before my stuff starts stinking to high heaven. For anything that goes into a washing machine, I have luck getting the smell out in a single wash cycle, with a full measure of my regular detergent, plus about a cup each of baking soda, lemon juice, and vinegar.

[sms001]

I am only familiar with kilz as a brand of primer?

Me too. But if they make a cleaner as effective as their paint, I'd say go for both. They have a primer that seals away EVERYTHING behind it, (Kilz Complete? Been a while.) which should do the job.

[PawnPrincess Ardra]

I have to vehemently agree with the Nilodor comment as well... that stuff is amazing! These suggestions are fantastic :-)