genuinegirly

How do you remove the lingering smell of cigarettes from an apartment?

Can you recommend any air purifying or enzymatic sprays that might eat up the smell?
Does bleach help?
Will leaving an air purifier or industrial strength fan on in the apartment for the next couple of days help?
Thanks in advance for your help!
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Here's where I'm coming from:
I'm moving into a new apartment this weekend. Closer to campus, better management, smaller complex with only graduate students, HUGE open kitchen with a smallish living space. Managment has replaced carpeting and there's beautiful colors of fresh paint - everything about this place is nice. Utterly ideal in nearly every way - except one thing: the previous tenant(s) were smokers. Even with the new carpet, when you walk into the apartment, you're overwhelmed with the lingering remnants of cheap cigarettes.

This smell is only in the living room.
The bedroom, bathroom, kitchen - all free from the smell of smoke. I assume this means they only smoked in the living room.

I currently have the windows open. Trying to air the place out. I don't want to spray anything that will only cover up the smell.

After visiting for a half hour, I returned to my car and was shocked at how much of the smell I picked up. We're starting to move our stuff over today, but we won't be moved in completely until Sunday.

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lostgirl

I know hotels use ionizers for that, it seems to work well.

Febreze may also help.

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Xerxys

I use Febreze for my car regularly and it only serves to annoy me seeing as it only covers the smell of moldy rust for a short while. So I it might help with relief but if your not easy to please, get a humidifier and an ionizer FAST!!

Quick question ... are there no other similar apartments in the same complex available? Have the management be a bit responsible for this ... somehow.

I also advice not moving anything in untiol you get it out of the nooks and crannies. That might be a personal preference for me seeing as I hate working around furniture but it might make you feel better.

Cynthetiq

wash the walls and shampoo the carpets. most people only shampoo the carpets, but the smoke also sticks to the walls.

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Baraka_Guru

Wash everything down with one part water, one part vinegar.

Boil some vinegar on the stovetop for a 10 to 15 minutes as well.

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ShaniFaye

those candles frebreeze makes for this purpose work awesome, thats what we bought when we quit smoking. We used two in the living room (separately, not at the same time) and one in the bedroom and washed the walls and you couldnt smell it at all (after we washed all the curtains and bed linens, but you dont have that issue)

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pig

Well, it's not quite the same thing, but when I moved in to my house, the odor of the previous owners was pretty strong. I used incense and candles...which kind of helped. But I'll tell you what kicked the odor's ass...cooking. I like italian food, so I made a bunch of pasta, heavy on the garlic and herbs. A few rounds of that...with the sauce just simmering on the stove for several hours at a time, removed the smell. Other things that helped; black beans made with Latin herbs, 3 puppies, 2 maltese dogs and 2 cats. Nothing did the job like heavily spiced food cooking for hours. I don't know how far your living room is from the kitchen, but it worked for me and this place is probably bigger than the complex you're talking about.

Oh, and all the ionizers and candles and whatnot that others have recommended. And sweat. Get YOUR odors into the house. Amazing how pleasing that is.

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snowy

At our last place, we had a smoking room. Before we moved out, I washed the walls with hydrogen peroxide. It took the smell out. The people who helped us move (including my parents) had no idea that that particular room had been our smoking room, or that we had smoked inside the house at all.

Just put it in a spray bottle and go to town. Don't put any more hydrogen peroxide in the bottle than you need as exposure to sunlight turns it to water. Obviously, don't spray it on non-white walls.

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genuinegirly

I see a lot of you are recommending washing the walls. Since the walls have a fresh coat of paint, is the smell sealed in for good, or should it be smothered by the new paint? Perhaps I should try scrubbing the ceiling? I'll be over there again this afternoon. Thanks for the great advice. I'll turn on our air filter / ionizer in the room once we have the elecricity hooked up Saturday, and I'll look for those Febreeze candles.

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"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

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wooÐs

Advertised as an air sanitizer, but I suggest spraying surfaces as well.

This stuff isn't cheap. The large can is about $25. Smaller trial size should run you around $5.

You can get the trial size over by the car smell good stuff in Walmart. Larger size can sold in head shops (excellent at killing the smell of herb that's growing or has recently been smoked.)

LordEden

I don't know you have them in your area genuinegirly, but around me I have cigarette shops that sell nothing but headshop kind of stuff plus tons and tons of different tobacco products. They have candles made for smoke smells and other spray bottles full of stuff that supposedly kills the smell of smoke. I've never really tried them, but stores that focus on tobaccos or headshops usually have items that take the smoke smells away.

I heard of using bottles of cleaner that takes the smell away that pets leave behind like urine smells and that "pet" smell will work for smoke. Never tried it tho.

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RogueGypsy

What Baraka Guru said, but also leave a quart jar 50/50 water and vinegar in each room over night. The Vinegar smell will dissipate a couple of hours after removing it and it will kill any odor in the house.

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MSD

You have to clean all the particulate matter from surfaces, then you can start removing the odor. Shampoo the carpets and wipe down the walls as suggested above. Once it's all dry, find a spray bottle of Lord Byron's Smoke Remover, I got it at Walgreens, and soak the carpets with it. At this point, there's a 95% chance that the smell will be gone. If there's a lingering odor, you may have to resort to an ozone generator, and please take all recommended precautions with it so you don't asphyxiate yourselves.

Ripsaw

Ceilings. You are trying to remove odorant molecules from your environment. The more you can clean, the less the place should smell. Make sure you get the baseboards where the wall connects to the floor, as well as any trim or molding on the ceiling. Get rid of anything in the room with fabric, like drapes or old couches. Wash the windows and frames. Cooking out the smell sounds like fun, but that is just adding odorant molecules on top of the bad ones. I once had an apartment with a window that was caked with cooking grease so thick you couldn't see through it.

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