Getting rid of smoke

Alison_B

My son has just bought his first home. When we went around before he bought it, the estate agents had all the windows and doors open but it was summer, so we didn't think anything of it. There was a slight smell but it had been vacant for about 6 months. He got the keys on Thursday and the smell is so overpowering. We have stripped the wall paper off and have taken up the carpets, which has taken some of the smell away. We have got some disinfectant and are going to wash the walls and floors etc with that. Is there anything else we can do to get rid of the smell? It is knocking us all sick as it is so strong.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

babyshoes

For carpets, soft furnishings and any surface that won't be happy to get wet, use bicarbonate of soda sprinkled on thickly. Leave as long as practical (at least overnight but a few days is better) then sweep up most of it and hoover the rest off. A paste of bicarb left to dry then swept & hoovered up should help for other surfaces like wooden floors (sprinkle dry powder into cracks first), ceilings etc, but test in a hidden area first in case it reacts badly.

Scented candles / incense / essential oil burners etc along with open windows as much as possible should help to make it bearable until you can get all surfaces and hidden areas thoroughly cleaned... In particular, think about areas you can't see that the smoke could still get to - is there a loft space you can get at to clean, is there a gap under the floorboards that you could sprinkle bicarb into?

If it is really as strong as you've said, I would suggest going back to the estate agent and complaining to a manager - perhaps they would agree to pay for or at least make a contribution towards a specialist cleaning service if you make enough fuss - they clearly knew there was an issue if they had the place wide open to the air during viewings...

Even if you struggle to get rid of the smell completely right away, it should fade in time, at least. Keep going at it and eventually you'll get it to a point where it's not noticeable any more. Good luck!

little_miss_muppet_face

The smell will go.. Eventually

A house we bought 10 years ago smelt strongly of smoke.. After lifting all carpets and plastering/painting etc the smell gradually got less and less the more we did.

After 6 months or so you wouldn't have known that a smoker lived there..

Just give it time xx

ariba10

Our son went to look at a house that had been empty for sometime and that had an appalling smell.

We found that the water had evaporated from the toilet trap.

Filled the cistern and flushed the toilet, problem solved.b

GreyQueen

Yuck. I feel for your son.

My present flat had been lived in by a smoker before me and he'd concentrated his smoking in the very small bathroom and the place reeked. I described the colour of the walls and ceiling to a friend as Kippered Magnolia.

I scrubbed everthing in there with sugar soap and sealed the walls and ceiling with PVA 5:1 with water before repainting. I'd say that resolved about 90% of the honk. The rest went when I happened to have the hardboard bath panel replaced.

Wash everything which can be washed, keep cleaning, and air the place out as much as possible and eventually it'll fade.

Alison_B

Thanks for the replies. We have stripped the walls and now removed the carpets and the smell of smoke has gone. Unfortunately when removing the carpets from upstairs we found that they had kept dogs upstair who had urinated on the floorboards but they sealed the floorboards with masking tape so we couldn't smell it. The stench is horrendous. We keep mopping the floorboards with disinfectant which is helping a little bit but if we don't go down the next day, the stench is back to being strong the day afterwards.

How some people live is beyond me.

meritaten

oh dear - floorboards stinking of dog urine will HAVE to be replaced. you wont get the smell out of that. I would be taking issue with the estate agents - this is definitely not on. disinfectant wont work. it can make it worse once the perfume from the disinfectant wears off. I think this is a legal issue - its going to cost a lot of money to get the smell out of there - and the owners knew about the issue and by the sound of it so did the estate agents. sorry - but once dog urine penetrates wood its impossible to eradicate. unless there is some new 'wonder product' out there I haven't heard of.

jackyann

I agree - don't keep washing as the water will spread the smell.
I hope it's just a small area so that you can replace a few floorboards easily.
I also wish you luck dealing with the estate agent!

mrsdwhite

I've got an elderly cat who tends to have issues peeing where he shouldn't. I found a product called sta-kill on Amazon which is in a spray bottle. It has a funny smell when it's sprayed but he smell goes after a few minutes. It works on pet urine smells, and cat pee is an almost impossible smell to eradicate! But this works for me. It's only a few pounds and might be worth a try before replacing the floor boards.