New house smells

Bredabe

My colleague bought a house that reeks of cigarette smoke(I assume the tenants had been smoking those heavy tobaccos from eastern europe) , she has done everything the internet suggests to be rid of this and it only works for a few hours. She has the windows open all hours and it never clears the smell completely.

I think some of it is coming from the house next door too, anyone got any ideas on how to clear the smell and maybe combat the smell coming from next door as well?

Kimbot

Well i would be wondering first of all how smoking in the next house is stinking up the original house.
Maybe a fresh lick of paint would take the smell out of their house as the smell would stick to the walls etc.

ThisRegard

I remember Sarah Beeny talking about a property she bought that had a bad smell of smoke in it. Repainting it didn't resolve it and she ended up having to re-skim it.

JimmyMW

Bredabe wrote: »

My colleague bought a house that reeks of cigarette smoke(I assume the tenants had been smoking those heavy tobaccos from eastern europe) , she has done everything the internet suggests to be rid of this and it only works for a few hours. She has the windows open all hours and it never clears the smell completely.

I think some of it is coming from the house next door too, anyone got any ideas on how to clear the smell and maybe combat the smell coming from next door as well?

It will definitely be in the paint and soft furnishings, new paint and deep clean carpets/ timber floors etc.

Victor

Wash every surface and repaint.

If there has been a fire, you would have to re-plaster affected sections.

steamsey

When we bought our house, it reeked of smoke. We got rid of all soft furnishings as mentioned above, throwing out basically everything including curtains, blinds and the couch. We then painted every interior wall. That pretty much god rids of the smell but it did take a few months to go completely.

If it's really bad - might need to use something like Zinsser BIN to seal the surface before painting. Re skimming seems drastic, and expensive / disruptive - if I was thinking of doing that - I would probably go for the Zinsser option first - http://www.zinsseruk.com/product/b-i-n/.

Samuel T. Cogley

As for it coming from next door, it might not be what's 'sticking' but you will easily smell it. I was famous on exercises for smelling cig smoke from miles (almost literally) away. I know when next door are having a smoke almost without fail. Suburban living I'm afraid.

sassyj

Professional cleaners who deal with smoke damage, they have specialist cleaning agents. There will be tar on ceilings etc. Then a full repaint job. As others have said, get rid of carpets, soft furnishing etc.

antoinolachtnai

There is a machine you can get called an ozone generator. I have not used one myself, but I understand that this may make an impact from previous research I have done.

I see a fairly inexpensive one on amazon, for under GBP 100. I have no idea what the quality is like.

There are certain safety precautions you need to take with these.

mikeymouse

I was reminded of this story

Cuddlesworth

sassyj wrote: »

Professional cleaners who deal with smoke damage, they have specialist cleaning agents. There will be tar on ceilings etc. Then a full repaint job. As others have said, get rid of carpets, soft furnishing etc.

If the person was a chain smoker, repainting just moves the tar around. You can see it swirling into the new paint. You have to wash all the walls and floors, sometimes multiple times, then repaint/refinish.

CeilingFly

Get a catalytic fragrance lamp. The wife uses one called Ashleigh and burwood. It deletes smells and they have an anti tobacco one which we use after certain relatives are here.

sassyj

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

If the person was a chain smoker, repainting just moves the tar around. You can see it swirling into the new paint. You have to wash all the walls and floors, sometimes multiple times, then repaint/refinish.

Which is why I recommended specialist cleaner Repaint after.

Re ozone machines, these won't work if house was smoked in all the time, more useful for ad hoc bad smell situations

wordofwarning

Sugar soap which you can buy in any decent hardware will remove the cigarette smoke tar from the walls with no issue.

I would call MRCB in Dublin for their advice. They are an excellent paint store where a lot of the staff are formers painters and will know how to deal with an issue like this

ThisRegard

CeilingFly wrote: »

Get a catalytic fragrance lamp. The wife uses one called Ashleigh and burwood. It deletes smells and they have an anti tobacco one which we use after certain relatives are here.

That'll just try to mask the smell, not a long term solution.

blackboots

Hi,

We had a similar problem in a property we bought. It was a buy to let property. It was a large house split into flats and we gutted the place when we bought it, put down new floors, put in new kitchens and bathrooms and repainted. One of the flats, which was occupied right up until we bought it still smelled of ashtray when the job was completed. It was faint, but it was definitely there. Nothing worked for us, it must have been in the plaster/walls like other people have said. We didn't try replastering as that would not have been possible, there was original coving work which had to stay.

It's a bit crappy but I can confirm that the smell went away within 6 months. We have a no smoking policy in the building and the smell simply dissipated over time. It's definitely not that I've just gotten used to it or gone "nose blind" as I've only been in the place a few times between tenancies and stuff.

Other than that, I agree with the poster above, MRCB are extremely helpful and if there's a paint/cleaning solution for the walls then they'll have it.

Best of luck!

CeilingFly

ThisRegard wrote: »

That'll just try to mask the smell, not a long term solution.

No - fragrance candles and sprays mask smells. A catalytic burner will eliminate smells. Don't ask me the science behind it, but they were originally used in hospitals to kill bacteria in the air back in the early 1900's