No smoking

[Desk clerk knows all]

Our hotel is a 100% smoke free hotel. So I check in these 2 couples last night who smell like smoke, so I emphasize our no smoking policy, make sure they initial on the reg card where it says if they smoke in the room we will charge them a fee of at least $150. One lady ask me were they can go to smoke, I tell her they can either go out in the front or the back of the hotel. (State law says you are supposed to be 25 feet from the door, but no one ever does that.) So about an hour later I'm walking down the hall outside thier room and I can smell smoke-idiots. I don't think people realize how hard it is to get that smell out of the room and get it back to smoke free status. If you want to smoke in your hotel room then stay at a hotel that has smoking rooms, how hard is that?

[bhskittykatt]

Ugh. I hate it when people do that. You have to wash ALL the bedding, the curtains, shampoo the carpet...and it still gets into the mattresses, and even on the walls.

My motel actually has smoking rooms, but smokers will want to take nonsmoking rooms. They say it's because they don't like the smell of smoking rooms, but it's going to smell like a smoking room when you're done in there! Gah! It's not fair to the next person who checks into that room, either.

I'd hate to have a fully nonsmoking hotel like yours, just because of SCs like that.

[Jester]

As a lifelong non-smoker, I always ask for non-smoking rooms. Imagine my dismay when, one night, exhausted from several hundred miles on the road, I find a hotel, check in, walk in....and see an ashtray full of butts on the nightstand. Especially after specifying a non-smoking room.

Of course, the beds weren't made and there was still trash in the trash cans, so clearly this room had not been "reset," but even so, why the fuck would the dumbass clerk give me a smoking room? (I know, I know....because he's a dumbass. Duh.)

Naturally I marched right back to the office and told them of the error, making sure to let them know that that room had not been turned over, and they got me a better room. "Better" being subjective, as that hotel was sketchy, and was the only place I've ever stayed where I removed ALL my luggage and belongings from my vehicle and locked it in the hotel room with me.

If you're ever on I-95 and need a hotel, don't stop at Florence, SC. It may be a nice enough town, but the area right by the interstate is NOT.

My motel actually has smoking rooms, but smokers will want to take nonsmoking rooms. They say it's because they don't like the smell of smoking rooms, but it's going to smell like a smoking room when you're done in there! Gah! It's not fair to the next person who checks into that room, either.

To be fair, there are plenty of smokers who don't smoke in their own homes or vehicles, but only smoke outside (or in public places where it is allowed, like some bars or what not), and so I can see them preferring non-smoking rooms. Of course, these are the types of people that would NOT smoke in the non-smoking rooms.

[kansasgal]

As a lifelong smoker, I understand your frustration when people smoke in non-smoking rooms. I always request smoking rooms, and if none is available, will go outside to smoke. The people who don't follow the rules are the ones giving smokers a bad time, as the smokers who obey the rules are the ones who get punished by harsher smoking laws, etc.

[rose_metal_nz]

To be fair, there are plenty of smokers who don't smoke in their own homes or vehicles, but only smoke outside (or in public places where it is allowed, like some bars or what not), and so I can see them preferring non-smoking rooms. Of course, these are the types of people that would NOT smoke in the non-smoking rooms.

^ this. As a smoker, I have no problem with a smoking room; but I'm not likely to actually close the doors & windows & smoke inside my idea of "smoking inside" tends to be "the weather is so horrible I'll stand in the doorway/sheltered area outside". I may not be as sensitive as non-smokers, but I do hate the smell of a badly-or-not-ventilated smoking room too

[blas]

Smoker since middle school.

I made the mistake of smoking in my first apartment. I cannot tell you how many washes it took before all of my clothes and bedding didn't wreek anymore.

I won't smoke indoors anywhere that I live. I smoke outside.

I tried to not smoke in my new car, but when they abolished smoking at work, I really had no choice but to light up on my way to and from work. Now that we are allowed to leave on lunch break, I try not to use my car unless it's frigid outside. For the most part, I really only smoke in my car on the way to work, some days on the way home, and occasionally if I'm bumming around town. And as long as it's not too cold, I am constantly cleaning the seats and using air fresheners.

If anything, restrictions like that really help me find something else to do, or make smoking more of a chore and less of a pleasure, which helps me.

I can't stand the smell. And I smoke. Odd, I know.

[Jester]

Odd, perhaps. But not as unusual as you might think.

I have a few rules in my truck. Rule #1 is NO SMOKING. I don't smoke, and I own the truck. Do the math. Sadly, some people can't, and I have had some clueless idiots light up without asking while in my truck. Needless to say, that didn't last very long AT ALL.

Bizarrely, my friend Frank, who has known me TWELVE YEARS, just a few months ago asked me, when I was picking him up to give him a ride into town as a favor, if I would mind horribly if he smoked out the window. I just stared at him and asked, "Really?" The only way you're going to smoke out the window of MY truck, my friends, is if you spontaneously combust during the commute. Hell, I'm not even a fan of smokers getting in my truck when they do that thing, that all of them do, of having one last puff off of their cigarette before putting it out and getting in my truck....which, of course, makes them REEK. That is bad enough. But you actually want to smoke, in my truck, and think that you blowing it out the window is going to do jack shit? My truck, my rules. Suck it up and deal with it.

And don't give me this catbutt face when I inform you of such. You know what my ex-fiance did when I let her know that I didn't allow smoking in my truck? She didn't smoke in my truck. Why? Because she respected my rules, just as I respect other people's rules. It ain't that tough.

Sorry, got off on a rant there. Wasn't directed at anyone here, just smokers in general who are clueless about such things. Many of whom are, oddly enough, my friends.

[blas]

I never ask to smoke in anyone else's vehicle unless they too, are smokers.

Strangely enough, my boyfriend (nonsmoker) doesn't care, but I found out one of his coworkers who smokes doesn't have a car and my bf let him smoke in there and he said he doesn't mind as long as the window is down.

Yeah, I'm the weirdo smoker who always has body spray and gum/mints because I don't want to be that person who walks up to you and smells like a smoke filled room.

[Jester]

On that note, my friend Little Red allows her boyfriend to smoke in her car, which I just don't get.

Then again, she allows him to DRIVE her car, and he doesn't even have a valid license, so apparently my opinion, not to mention the reality of potential consequences, doesn't really mean all that much to her.

[blas]

We take my car more often because it's a lot more dependable, and of course, anyone who has seen me smoking in my car will see my window ALL the way down (even at below zero temps) and my arm partway out the window. I just don't get how anyone can cloudnine themselves in their car smoking. Ish.

I guess it just doesn't bother him that much. Athough when he gets his new car, I'm sure the rules will change. And I am totally fine with that.

My little brother got a new truck this last spring, and I wouldn't dare ask him to smoke in there after he said he's never smoked in there and won't.

This all reminds me, later this week when it gets above freaking 20 degrees and I don't need mittens, I gotta clean my seats again and change air fresheners.

[DeltaSierra]

I'm in the market for a new (to me) car, and I'm trying to figure out a non sucky way to inform my Mom, Dad, brother, and his fiance and friends whom all smoke that they won't be allowed to in my new car. My last one, it was an old Chev cavalier, and I didn't press the issue with any of them, and I just let it be. My Mom and Brother/his friends won't have much of an issue with it I don't think, but its going to be HELL with my father. He's a 100% EW and believes that he has the "right" to smoke wherever he pleases (he's the kind of guy who WOULD smoke in a non-smoking room,) and I just know he's going to get his knickers in a twist when I inform him that if he he won't be allowed to borrow the car if he smokes in it.

I LOVE my Dad to pieces, but telling him he can't smoke somewhere is like telling him to not breathe. I'm not looking forward to this at all.

[Jester]

Your car, your rules. If he won't abide by your rules, don't loan him the car. Simple as that.

Will he get his knickers in a twist? Well, if he's as much as an EW as you say, then probably. But it's either that or have your new car smell like an ashtray.

Your call.

[figgyx]

happens all over

I also work at a hotel on the audit shift and we get people who smoke in nonsmoking rooms all the time. (even after making them initial a statement on the reg card about not smoking) We too charge them 150 for the honor of soiling our nonsmoking rooms with their nasty cigarette smoke. One night we even had a group of people smoking the wacky tobacky in their room. How are people so damn stupid that they don't realize the housekeeper will smell the weed in the morning?

[blas]

My biggest thing is....nonsmoking hotels....no ashtrays....where the hell do people put their butts out?

If it's anything like where I live, where it seems I am the only person who actually has Butt Buckets (self extinguishing ashtrays), they all use soda cans/bottles. And they are all over outside here. Yuck.

Even as a smoker, the rare occasion I get to stay at a hotel, I'd never want a smoking room. Ever. I like a clean, fresh smelling room.

I don't even like going to people's homes where they smoke in. Just nasty.

[Seshat]

In my opinion, the majority of air fresheners just make a place smell like cigarettes + perfume. (Or used cat litter + perfume, or ... )


We use odour neutralisers (nilodor is one brand), vinegar, carb soda, and a substance called 'urine free'. That last one is specifically a molecule which denatures the urine, turning it into neutral stuff.

The rest actually absorb odours. Yes, even the vinegar. Sure, it makes the place smell like vinegar for about a day .. but after that day, it smells like a place that's been used for about a day: not all week.

Blas, try making/getting a little fabric pouch and stuffing it full of carb soda. Stick that someplace in your car. You should find that the car gets less smelly. Eventually, you'll need to tip the carb soda out and replace it with fresh stuff: how long will depend on how much carb soda the pouch has, and how stinky the car can get.