Buying a house that stinks of smoke

[SecondhandTable]

Has anyone done this before? How little redecorating can you get away with whilst still getting rid of the smell? All the walls are wallpapered so I'd imagine stripping all the walls and repainting everything, new stair carpet. The floors are laminate, would they be ok with a good clean? What about kitchen units and built-in cupboards, would a good clean be sufficient or would the smells linger?

We did it! Got the house for a steal too in an amazing location - far more house than we’d thought we could afford there! Because I guess everyone else was put off - it stank of smoke, and dog wee. Disgusting.

Stripped all flooring out (it was gross anyway couldn’t have been kept). And put new in. Repainted absolutely everything in many layers of white paint. Obviously scrubbed everything else to within an inch of its life. Replaced light switches and plug sockets.

Couldn’t afford new kitchen, that was the worst room as well. Absolutely thick with it and the nicotine stained dust that came out from behind the radiator was grim. We scrubbed the kitchen and painted it. I could still smell the smoke for a few weeks afterwards but it did eventually go (and then we moved in about a month after that). We’ve been here a year now and you can’t smell smoke at all.

You could always make a very low offer, taking into account what you’d have to spend to get rid of the smell? We’re so glad we got our house, we’ll likely be here forever.

I wonder if these sellers are even aware of how potential buyers see their houses?

No. The house we live in now had a visitor who was a smoker. We didn't know until we moved in. The room we'd set for our baby had to be gutted. I smelled the smoke on the first night. Had to go around the house working out where the hell I was smelling smoke.

Everything had to be gutted (all carpets out). I stripped floorboards, stripped layers of paint. All of it.

It was rank. If the floors are laminate, they probably need replacing. They'll be impregnated. Anything remotely absorbent soaks up nicotine. Takes ages to get rid of that.

Yep I'd recommend stain blocker paint too, even (especially) on ceilings as it'll all leach through brown if you don't stop it. Stripping smoke-stained wallpaper is just disgusting too. But the smell will go.

Pet wee is a whole other matter..!

I have a Victorian flat and the previous owner was a heavy smoker. The flat smelled when we viewed but everything else was good so we bought it. We tore out all the curtains, stripped the wallpaper (would have done that anyway - woodchip), put up lining paper and painted it, and hired a carpet shampoo machine and washed all the carpets twice. Then we moved in. About 6 years after moving in we ripped out the last carpet and in the last year the smell had started to come back in the carpet, but now the carpets are all gone there’s no lingering smell. But we planned to completely renovate it - it hadn’t been touched in decades - and with that experience of the carpet I wouldn’t have high hopes of ever washing one often enough to keep it.

I haven’t had any problems with nicotine coming back on the ceilings or corn icing though - we didn’t strip them - maybe the high ceilings meant they didn’t get as badly stained as in other houses, and the old plaster is very solid, more so than plasterboard.

You can get rid of it, but it’s hard work. I inherited my dad’s bungalow last year and he was a very heavy indoor smoker who never opened a window. Everything was yellow/brown. Thankfully, only the bedroom was carpeted and he didn’t smoke in there; the rest is Karndean and has cleaned up really well. I’ve so far ripped the kitchen out, removed all soft furnishings and sugar soaped every wall/ceiling/door etc, as well as bleaching all the floors and shampooing the bedroom carpet, plus having all the windows and doors wide open whilst I’m there. Not decorated yet, but I’m confident it will be fine after that, as I’m not noticing it nearly as much upon first walking in as I was a few months ago.

The house I currently live in was owned by smokers when I bought it, although not as bad as my dad’s house, it was noticeable until I’d cleaned thoroughly and decorated. Totally gone now though thankfully.

@MySocalledLoaf

The smell seemed to disappear from pubs eventually so it must be doable.

Exactly. And whoever said most houses over a certain age will have belonged to smokers at some point in spot on. When we moved into our current house we were both smokers. We’ve subsequently given up, everywhere has been redecorated and recarpeted and you’d never know. We haven’t yet replaced the kitchen and it doesn’t smell.

Does it not depend how badly the house has been affected by it though? Someone who smokes by their back door only a few times a day or something will have much less of an issue with their house than someone who chain smokes in every room of the house for example. Especially as a few PPs here said they didn't notice the smoke smell until they moved in, whereas me and DH instantly smelled an extremely strong smell of smoke immediately upon entering the property and the smell was all over the house!

my parents house stank of smoke, the house was empty for 18 months after they died, it took months or airing daily, carpets cleaned, walls scrubbed. Only smelled fresh after about 16 months.

We smoked everywhere @SecondhandTable. The bloke was on 60 a day at one point, you’d never know anyone had ever had a cigarette in the house now. We haven’t even stripped the wallpaper - I reckon the house would fall down if we did!

MySocalledLoaf
The smell seemed to disappear from pubs eventually so it must be doable"
But I think pubs are cleaned daily and deep cleaned regularly. Your average heavy smoker domestic home ( and in fact any home, smoker or not) possibly wasn't /isn't cleaned as regularly. Years more of ingrained smell and dirt.