To ask about phantom smells?

[ButterbuttSquash]

We moved into our house last winter. My husband and I live on the ground floor with our baby daughter and we have rooms upstairs for family when they stay.

When my mum stayed for a while shortly after we moved, she said that every now and then in the upstairs room, she smelt a strong tobacco smell, as if someone who smoked very heavily had passed her. But it was not there all the time. I’d never smelt it and shrugged it off.

Months have past and I’ve never smelt it until a few weeks ago when I went into our lounge one morning and it stunk of cigarettes! Opened all the windows and put an air freshener in. It took 2 days to go. Then nothing until yesterday.

Sitting in the lounge having morning tea with my husband and it suddenly wafts past us. Both smell it and it’s really strong, but then gone. We both look at each other and try to come up with an explanation, something under the floorboards? The heat bringing it out of the walls? Fire damaged carpet?

In the evening my husband comes into the bedroom from the office which is situated at the far end of the house, no where near the living room to tell me it was in there when he got his laptop.

We’re still trying to come up with explanations. My husband and mother do not smoke, if I do it’s once in a blue moon on a night out so certainly never in the house! No one would smoke in the house, and we don’t have that many guests here that it would ever happen without us knowing.

Has anyone experienced anything like this? It’s so strong, then just vanishes.

Is it a detached house?

Do you share any walls with neighbours?
Smell wafting in through open windows?
Old carpets?

Or old wiring?

My house where I lived as a child had this too!!! My parents did smoke, but this was not cigarette smoke, it was tobacco, different smell, and it was only ever in one place- in the hallway. It smelt like someone smoking a pipe.

We’re detached. Not particularly near any neighbours. And all the rooms we’ve smelt it in are not near each other so wouldn’t be near the same neighbour (house is situated peculiarly on a corner plot). As for wiring, my other half is an electrician and tested it all before we moved. He says dodgy wiring has a distinctive fishy smell and this is definitely tobacco. The other strange thing is the upstairs and office is extension (Upstairs 6 years, office about 12 years old) and living room is original house.

@Reallymissthegym the hallway is an especially weird place to smell it.

Another thing to add, is that the property was vacant for a few years before we bought it. Belonged to investor who let the rooms out but eventually he redecorated it all and re-carpeted and put it one the market where It stayed empty until we bought it.

How close are your neighbours? We get this occasionally, a sudden waft of ciggie smoke. I think one of our neighbours has the odd smoke outside and it just takes a while for it to come inside. The obvious explanation is clearly supernatural activity though

I used to smell cigarette smoke when I was pregnant. Very odd, but was always the initial indicator for me to get a test!

We get this. The property had been let out before we bought it but previous to that I think the owner was a heavy smoker. The house was refurbished for rental but every now and again I can smell smoke. Particularly on warmer days.

Ghosts!

@antisupermum mine was petrol. But if it wasn’t for the fact 3 of us have smelt it, I’d be suspicious of that.

@Lavenderpurple we’re chalking it up to the housemates three years ago, but it’s so weird it usually wafts in then disappears. Apart from the one time so far it lingered in the living room.

@Mucklowe I’ve told my husband it’s probably a ghost, but only because that kind of talk freaks him out.

We had the smell of burning weed in our living room at one point. That lead to some finger pointing I can tell you

Turned out it was a radiator leaking behind the sofa. Mouldy carpet, the lot.
Would have sworn it was pot smoke...

I get a very occasional waft of cigarette smoke on my landing upstairs. None of my neighbours smoke, just assume it's a poltergeist

@Stronger76 I’m half inclined to just give it that explanation. Can’t understand why it’s mostly a fleeting waft?

I used to get an occasional whiff of depilatory cream in my bathroom. But not since we had it completely redone.