Cleaning an ex smokers house

[Borninabarn32]

Debate with DP. If you bought a house (nice clean house) that someone heavily smoked inside and it smelled of smoke would you clean it?

Shampoo the carpets, wipe/clean the walls/ceilings kind of thing

Or would you

just open the windows and plug an air freshener in? Maybe a heavy hovering(what ever he ment by that).

YANBU I'd clean the smoke out like kim and aggy.

YABU I'd just open windows and air out and cover the smell it will be gone in no time

I wouldn't buy it in the first place as the smell is so hard to get rid of and it makes me feel ill.
My SIL bought a smokers house and had to knock the off the plaster and skirtings and redo the whole lot to get rid of the smell as it had seeped into everything. It was disgusting.

Sugar soap the walls/ceilings, rug doctor the carpets (or replace them!), wash any curtains, wash windows, window frames... everything.

Simply opening some doors and windows and squirting some Glade around won't remove traces of a smoker from inside a house. That nicotine staining and build up needs washing off.

We did buy an ex-smokers house and washed down the walls etc. We eventually repainted and recarpeted but it took a while.
The smell will linger. You won't get it out by opening windows as the tar sticks to everything. The radiators changed colour when we washed them........

I'd go nuclear on it, asuming we're talking decades of heavy smoking. Tear out all carpets and wallpaper, wash the walls and apply a blocking primer before paint.

Unfortunately the chemicals in smoke may still be harmful for years as they seep into surfaces and emit toxins. It's known as "third hand smoke".

I bought one. Replaced the carpets. Washed and repainted the walls. Just airing it won’t help.

Honestly, I wouldn't buy it unless I was planning to completely strip it out and start again. We've been in our house for 18 years, and the previous owners, who were all non-smokers, were here for 5 years before that. In our time here, we have changed virtually all the flooring, steamed off all the wallpaper and redecorated every wall and ceiling and all the woodwork, most of it twice, I'm a fresh air fiend and have windows open daily all year round, and we still occasionally come downstairs in the morning after the windows have been shut overnight to a very faint whiff of old smoke.

If it’s years of indoors smoking (like my grandmothers house) the walls and ceiling will be permeated with yellow stinky nicotine. I wouldn’t buy a house with that much damage in the first place. As above suggestion sugar soap, walls and ceilings, repaint, replace the carpets. Even then, it’s incredibly hard to get rid of.

Smokers with years of tar? Wouldn’t touch the house with a barge pole! My dad’s house reeked smoke when we have to clear it. Just moving papers felt as though I was having a cigarette. Smoke seeps into the fabric of the house, just gross 🤮

I had to clean a grandparent’s house once. I used bottles of Flash bleach on every wall, ceiling and surface and left the windows and doors open for days.

You have to scrub and repaint.

I dread when my next door neighbour sells for this exact reason - they are a heavy indoor smoker and have been for years, and the work involved in making that house habitable before/after it is sold will be a nightmare. The stench is so bad that I can smell it in my house the second they open their doors (I tend to keep my windows open) and her own windows are yellowed as is the entire inside of the house. The only way to deal with that is going to be to strip out almost everything (carpets, possibly woodwork like banister & skirting board), probably replaster walls and ceilings, seal & repaint them all to stop the stench seeping out, replace all the wooden window frames, and srcub and seal everything else like the kitchen units to within an inch of its life. And I wouldn't be surprised if even that doesn't do the trick. Smoke just sticks around forever, leaving windows open is going to do next to nothing.

I'd have it professionally deep cleaned.

We didn’t buy the only smokers house we looked at. Too much work! Would definitely need at minimum a deep clean, strip out carpets, wallpaper, etc.

Happened to me once .
I threw all carpets out .
Got my friends round.
We stripped all wall paper.
Washed every wall .. every bit of paint works... in fact everything.
Redecorated.
Got new carpets and flooring.
Then moved in with furniture/ beds/ clothes etc.
I wasn't having anything smell of smoke.

Neither vote is right.

You have to get rid of all things that are material - curtains, blind, carpets.
You really also have to strip wallpaper off and redecorate.

Smoke is a bugger to get rid of.

We brought one like this, it stank, we knew it needed all of the work but a deep clean, stripped walls and replastered, new flooring and the smell did go, fairly quickly. Definitely within 6 months you wouldn’t have known. 3rd hand smoke aside but most houses older than 20 years will have been smoked in, a lot, previously.

Personally I wouldnt buy it and when we were looking for houses we did discount properties that were clearly smokers houses

Unless you have the time and money to strip everything, I mean everything right back, that smell will linger, you cant get rid of it, skirting boards, flooring, even if laminate, paintwork, wallpaper, stair treads, window sills, coving, the list is endless

It will be a very tough job, opening a window wont be enough.

However I can smell smoke on something non porous if its been in a smokers house, plastics for example, some people wouldnt notice perhaps unless its a fabric.

I wouldnt buy it in the first place

We bought an ex smokers house but we ended up replastering the whole house, replacing all flooring and painting everywhere. I don't think just opening a window would have done it. It was all yellow and vile.

If you bought a house (nice clean house) that someone heavily smoked inside...

A "nice clean house" which "someone heavily smoked inside"? Contradictory - if the house has been heavily smoked inside then it will need completely stripping out and redecorating. I'd prefer a house someone had died in and decomposed, to be honest.

As a buyer I’d probably get new carpets or have them professionally cleaned, regardless of someone smoking. And the walls would likely be getting painted anyway, just because it’s nice to make the home your own when you move in.

I would wipe walls and skirting with sugar soap and open windows.
I wouldn’t re plaster just yet - wait and see how bad it is in a couple of months. But whatever you do, the smell could linger for years.

This.

I’d change the carpets, paint the walls. Scrub skirt boards, throw out curtains and leave the windows open daily for weeks.

plug ins won’t do anything.