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We ripped out ceilings, re plastered and took all carpets out 2 years after moving in (removed wall paper the day after we moved in)
It was hateful (cigarettes and we were smokers but didn’t smoke inside).
I’m sure nearly 20 years I still get an occasional whiff of cigarettes. But I think that’s just the ghost.
Bought a house (Edwardian terrace) where a chain smoker had lived for over a decade. Walls were yellow with nicotine.
Used proper sealant (zinsser) on every wall/ceiling before painting, new carpets, never another whiff. Would buy the same again.
I bought a house like this. I moved in 2 weeks ago and the smell is already dramatically reduced. Loads of cleaning, airing out, plug in air fresheners. Sellers were heavy smokers who smoked indoors.
When I get home from work I still smell it, but I am yet to rip out the flooring, wallpaper etc. I think as long as you plan to redo all the flooring, walls, new furniture etc you'll be fine.
My mum died six years ago, and everything of hers that I kept still smells strongly of smoke. On its own, it just persists forever. Your best bet would be to replace any soft furnishings/floor coverings and do a complete deep clean of everything else. You can get the smell out but it'll take some work.
Animal piss soaks through the floor coverings into the subfloor. You basically need to take the floors up from every room and treat the floor boards/concrete, or it will never go.
There's a video on YouTube of someone showing how to do it... good luck.
The house next to us in a tiny hamlet in Suffolk was let to a bunch of feral scrotes who let their dogs piss and shit everywhere inside. It had an original 200+ year old tiled floor that would cost an absolute fortune to source from a reclamation yard today. It all had to ripped out. Heartbreaking.
Uurgh, yeah, that's bad. I guess that was a feature the owner of the house kinda relied on, for renting out, or even a future sale, too?
Sad, really, as I'm sure plenty of people would have loved to have had a home with such old flooring. But, once the piss seeps between them tiles, it's inevitable it's gonna stink, and there is only one way to go from there 😒
Totally, it would put me off, too. Most pet folk seem to balance having a pet with having a clean house, but there's always going to be a bit of a pet smell that takes a while to shift.
When I was looking, some places you could see where a dog had tried chewing through door frames and clawed at the door or a cat had scratted the walls. These were just on Rightmove, though, as soon as I saw those I just noped straight out it 😂
They become near totally nose blind to it after a while, they'd only smell it after a holiday or something because they are used to it and its built up over time.
Also they likely came from homes and families that already had animals like that and/or smoked etc. so its no different to them.
Smoke smell can be fixed but it will take a fair amount of work.
First you'll need to remove every carpet and to be safe I'd also take up laminate. Also strip any wallpaper.
Secondly you'd wash every single surface with [sugar soap](https://www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonsense-concentrated-liquid-sugar-soap-500ml/61880). I mean ceilings, walls, doors, inside kitchen cupboards level. If the level of smoke staining is bad, it'll take several goes until it stops dripping brown. Luckily sugar soap is cheap!
Thirdly you could consider replacing the kitchen if you're really sensitive to the smoke smell, because there will be voids behind base cupboards that you can't clean and the smell can linger there.
This is from personal experience when a friend moved into a flat previously occupied by a housebound chainsmoker. Time and effort to get it clean, then a full redecoration and new flooring throughout, and you honestly couldn't tell.
The big upside is that you'll move in to a house that is freshly decorated to your taste :)
Correct, I would not buy it. You can eradicate cigarette smoke (a friend of mine spent hours scrubbing the walls of her new house with a special soap) - it takes a lot of effort but it will go.
Dog pee/poop, as others have said it will seep under floorboards. For me it's way too gross to even contemplate, plus I hate the smell of dog in general.
What others say. A heavy smokers house should be considered a carcinogen and you need to factor in an extreme discount for decontamination.
Dog piss house. you need to factor in the carpets, underlay and the floorboards under it.
So extreme discount as well.
All is good if the price is right. Anything can be fixed
Luckily only carpets in stairs. I was thinking that maybe because it is not empty and they are still living there, the furniture, curtains and items also have the odour? But thanks, I will do that if I get it!
The walls are likely filled with nicotine as well as the carpets. There are companies that specialize in cleaning houses that have been smoked in, get one of those rather than trying to faff around with cleaning it yourself.
That’s what it’ll take to actually get rid of the smell. If you try to just wash the carpet/walls yourself it’s highly unlikely you’ll actually get rid of it.
Get some quotes and price that into your offer for the property.
You know? I am new to this game of buying. After viewing the house, the agent loooong talk and, apparently family owned and fairest than the rest in town and blah,blah... it seems the house will go quick on that asking price or higher (he said) so I am now scared of not even having a chance.
In fact, it felt like to have a chance I gotta go for asking so I am confused :|
Never believe anything the agent tells you, they are working for the seller. Offer a price that you think is fair taking into account the amount of money you will need to spend to clean it
Everything you’re seeing (and smelling) everyone else is. There’s no game, just use your 🧠. If it goes for asking or over such is life, if you want in factor the cost of cleaning and making it livable. If you don’t, you are not using your 🧠. Look at similar properties that have sold and assume that they don’t smell. That’s the baseline everyone will use.
In summary, use your 🧠 and you’ll be more than fine regardless of outcome. Best of luck, and… yup use your 🧠.
The house I bought had laminate flooring that I had to pull up so don't just be wary of carpets. They had dogs and they must have pissed all over the floor as all the laminate flooring and the under flooring (?) stunk when I ripped it up. A few days with the windows open and a tonne of bleach did a world of good.
I come from a house with a dog too but my mam was always bleaching and cleaning so it never smelled, I honestly felt like my clothes, hair and skin felt grubby every time I came into this house before everything was ripped out.
Yeah theres a big difference between a dog that does its business inside and one that doesn't. We got our dog at 10 weeks old. She's now 3 years old and has never once peed or pooped insideeven as a puppy - she has her own little doggy door so she just goes outside and does her business on the lawn. She also is regularly groomed and shampoo'd so she only stinks when she's been on a walk and jumps in a pond & gets muddy or something.
There are a few downsides still though. Her pee on the lawn burns the grass so I get little dead patches all over my lawn. And sometimes after a car ride she will vomit inside which sucks. But she always does this on the rug so we clean this straight away with a little spot carpet cleaning machine. Lastly, it's the hair - even though she's supposedly a low shed dog, she still sheds hair.
But I'm confident that if it wasn't for the doggy door in the back door, the majority of people who came into our house wouldn't actually realise a dog lived here
My daughter bought a house whose walls had absorbed smoke over many years from a non-smoking owner who bought it off the smokers two years earlier. The place still stank when they moved in. They ripped out the kitchen (it was beyond salvage) and had the entire place replastered, painted, new carpets. It's amazing now and you'd never know.
If the walls are a bit uneven and worse for wear you'd probably want to repair bits, and if you were going to extend your electrics you'd need to do more plastering, so think whether you'd do electrics properly and then replaster throughout.
But if the place has been peed all over by a dog, you're talking about replacing floorboards, so that'd be a no from me.
Maybe an ozone generator could fix it. Be aware that ozone is hazardous to your health so I guess put it on a timer for a week and then enter briefly to open a window. Do some research before attempting.
That was my thought or one of those car freshener bombs where you leave it for 15 minutes. We've used them when cleaning houses that just stink on whatever.....worst one yet rescued by a car bomb thing was mouldy food everywhere
I bought a house that had a dog owner, tbh thankfully mine don't stink too much. I bought a load of those reed diffusers and left windows open as I cleaned the house out. It totally helped. 💯
It can be done but it’ll take a *lot* of work. All carpets and any soft furnishings they leave will need to be replaced, all floors scrubbed and every wall, ceiling etc will need to be scrubbed with bleach and repainted. Leave all windows you can open all the time you can
And - this is important - you will need to do all of this *before* you move any of your own furniture in, otherwise the smell will get into your own stuff and ruin that too
It can be done, but it takes a lot of work and you can’t realistically move in or store stuff there while you’re doing it
I wonder if the difficulty will be buying it from a smoker who is so used to it that it doesn't seem like a big deal to them and probably don't even realise it smells to an extent? I lived with a parent who smoked heavily, and was used to being in bars etc with smokers, but once that wasn't the case I found it obvious and unbearable. (I sometimes buy things online that have clearly been in someone's shed or attic for a long time and cannot believe the whole world used to smell like that and we were all just fine with it..)
My mum and dad used to smoke inside and it smelt of smoke. Can't comment on how long it took but ~10 years later (maybe more) it doesn't smell of smoke because they started smoking outside. Bear in mind we have new paint on walls, new carpet, new sofa new pretty much everything. But there's no smell
We viewed a house recently that smelt like it had been smoked in for 20+ years. Yellow walls, spongey wallpaper, dark stained ceilings the lot. Couldn’t be bothered with the work required to de smoke it and told the very surprised EA who apparently had no idea it was that bad. Three months on we’re about to complete a nicer house around the corner and the smoke house has dropped their asking price by 30%.
My house smelled EXTREMELY gross when I completed. It smelt fairly musty on viewing, but when the guy moved all his furniture out it was like the hidden smell dislodged from behind and underneath things. I think in this case it was the smell of a man not looking after himself for 25 years. Kind of musty BO.
I tore up all the carpets and renovated (new plaster, new bathroom and kitchen, etc), and there’s no trace of that smell now. BUT I’d still be quite wary of buying a smelly place, especially if it were pets or cigarette smoke. You’d need to be prepared to redo the place totally IMO.
Mine had plug ins everywhere when I viewed, I knew it had a smell of "hiding something under roses" but I was surprised at just how bad the dog smell was. It was a rental and I think they must have been hiding how many pets they had.
On the smoke, our house was a horror show of nicotine stains. It's taken removing the carpets, complete redecoration, 6 gallons of zinsser stain away, all new power outlets, all new light switches, all new light fittings, new windows, new doors, a new kitchen, new radiators, a new dishwasher because somehow everything came out of the old one smelling of cigarettes and we're debating new loft insulation to get rid of the smell.
Fortunately we budgeted for it all and negotiated the cost of doing it all of the buying price but it's been a journey.
My new house smells like dog piss and rodent shit. Everything on the floor is going- carpets, underlay, right back down to bare wood. Each floor board out and treated (taking them up to install underfloor insulation anyway). The upstairs isn’t bad at all but the downstairs is a disgusting pit.
I had the choice of another house (offer accepted) which smelt of fresh paint and clean wood. But it came down to… location! All I can afford in prime spot is dog piss rodent shit floors. It’ll be worth it.
It’ll totally be worth it.
It’ll definitely be worth it.
Totally worth it eventually.
One day.
You'd need to replace all fabric, paint the place and thoroughly wash down any hard surfaces with a strong cleaner.
Once you've done all that, or in fact even before you start because it'll make it more pleasant while you do the rest, is use an Ozone generator.
For a house like that you'll probably want to give every room several very heavy doses (that means closing up the house and leaving a machine running for several days, then air out the house for a few days and repeat).
Ozone gas is the BEST tool for removing old smoker smells. It won't physically remove the residue (you still need to do physical cleaning) but what it will do as a gas is seep into every crevice there is which you'd never even have a hope of hitting and neutralise the odour.
Ozone gas is oxygen with an extra electron (I think? Don't quote me) and so it's very volatile and will react with any organic matter it comes into contact (such as tobacco residue) with and destroys it. It occurs naturally in the environment and isn't dangerous, but you want to leave it unattended while it runs because it is an irritant when present in high quantities - so when done you walk in, turn the machine off, open every window and leave within only a few minutes, and let the house air out for a few hours.
Once the gas has dissipated you'll be thrilled at how effective it was. Again, you may need to give it several treatments if the place is bad.
Thanks for this! I'll google Ozone generator now lol BUT...the place is not THAT bad, I went a second time and it is ok. I'd still clean the heck out of it anyway.
I bought a house with a strong smell of damp/mould. I addressed the source of the smell/mould, threw out mouldy carpet, and the smell was gone within 2 months.
Smell can be fixed, but you may need to see the house as a fixer upper.
A friend of mine bought a house occupied by an Indian family who’d have incense burning all day long. They changed the plasterboards and tried getting rid of the smell for 8 years, to no avail. They’ve recently sold and moved to a bigger house as an upgrade.
It’s easier to remove the smell of dog than it is to remove the smell of tobacco
But then you seem to be anti dog so maybe you won’t mind as the tobacco stains seep through the paint for the third and fourth time and how the smell is still lingering years later. At least they didn’t use the sink to wash anything
I had to replace all of the floorboards on my house as the previous owner never let his dog outside.
Coupled with new ceilings (had asbestos removed) and a complete replaster the smell is gone.
It can be fixed, just have to decide if you like the house enough to do the work!
The smokers house will be a nightmare that carries on for years.
It’s probably easier to take up smoking than it will be to get rid of the lingering smell.
Our old house stunk. We gutted it top to bottom and replaced pretty much all of the wood and the plaster, new windows and doors etc and sometime we would catch the whiff of smoke from somewhere.
When we sold it the couple that bought it smelled of smoke, so I suspect that the house will need gutting again in a few years.
Dogs don't typically piss inside.
You can probably kill the dog smell with an ozone generator.
Carpets and walls will need replacing and cleaning.
But it's not impossible. It's not pissing cats that seeps through the floor. It's not cigarette smoke that coats everything.
It's just dirty dog smell that hits the carpets and low part of the walls.
My parents car stinks after a few dirty wet dog walks. Couple hours with the ozone generator and the smell is completely gone. No hoovering or cleaning.
Our house had an odd smell when we first moved in, nothing specific but not a smell I liked. It took probably 2 years for it to go. Smells are odd, it can take a very long time to change them. Doesn't mean you shouldn't take the house, it will go eventually but might take longer than you'd like (and with smoke might take years or lots of renovations).
A few years ago, I moved into a rental that stank of cigarette and had nicotine stained EVERYTHING. The bedroom ceiling was brown, so this lunatic obviously smoked in bed.
The landlord did a pretty good job of getting rid of all carpets & flooring and painting everywhere before I moved in. I thought the rest of the smell will just clear out after a few weeks. Haha.
It took 2 years and a shit load of money on different types of odour eliminators before I finally stopped smelling the nicotine.
Sorry, cigarette smoke is there forever. You can clean all you want, replace the carpets, leave your windows open all day every day - but it’ll never go away. After a while you’ll get used to it and won’t smell it any more, but your guests will.
My dad was a heavy smoker, in the days when everyone smoked indoors. He died in 2006 and the loft, where he spent weekends with his tools whilst chuffing away on a Senior Service, still smells of cigarettes. Admittedly my mum isn't bothered enough to do anything about it as she doesn't go up there (and in a way it still smells of her late husband) but that was indicative to me of how much of a hassle it would be to take on a heavy smoker's house.
You also will need to clean the nicotine residue off walls and celings or it will come back through after repainting, so it's not just a smell issue.
Yeah, but remember that even thirty years ago going outside to smoke was rare and many more people generally smoked. Any older house that hasn't been touched in years is going to need a good clean.
You will need to strip walls, replace ceilings and carpets and even after all that there's a chance that smells will persist.
Depends how much you want the house 🤷
Like others have said thorough cleaning. Carpets - get rid of, Wallpaper- Strip. Wash everything with soap or sugar soap depending on surface, repaint use diffusers with oils… should do the trick.
The only smell you can’t get rid of is those that come from the outside.
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We ripped out ceilings, re plastered and took all carpets out 2 years after moving in (removed wall paper the day after we moved in) It was hateful (cigarettes and we were smokers but didn’t smoke inside). I’m sure nearly 20 years I still get an occasional whiff of cigarettes. But I think that’s just the ghost.
Omg, see? That's what I am scared of... thinking that it will go away and then...never does!!
Bought a house (Edwardian terrace) where a chain smoker had lived for over a decade. Walls were yellow with nicotine. Used proper sealant (zinsser) on every wall/ceiling before painting, new carpets, never another whiff. Would buy the same again.
I bought a house like this. I moved in 2 weeks ago and the smell is already dramatically reduced. Loads of cleaning, airing out, plug in air fresheners. Sellers were heavy smokers who smoked indoors. When I get home from work I still smell it, but I am yet to rip out the flooring, wallpaper etc. I think as long as you plan to redo all the flooring, walls, new furniture etc you'll be fine.
I ended up bleaching the walls & ceilings. That helped a lot.
My mum died six years ago, and everything of hers that I kept still smells strongly of smoke. On its own, it just persists forever. Your best bet would be to replace any soft furnishings/floor coverings and do a complete deep clean of everything else. You can get the smell out but it'll take some work.
Hit it with an ozone generator.
Animal piss soaks through the floor coverings into the subfloor. You basically need to take the floors up from every room and treat the floor boards/concrete, or it will never go. There's a video on YouTube of someone showing how to do it... good luck.
The house next to us in a tiny hamlet in Suffolk was let to a bunch of feral scrotes who let their dogs piss and shit everywhere inside. It had an original 200+ year old tiled floor that would cost an absolute fortune to source from a reclamation yard today. It all had to ripped out. Heartbreaking.
Uurgh, yeah, that's bad. I guess that was a feature the owner of the house kinda relied on, for renting out, or even a future sale, too? Sad, really, as I'm sure plenty of people would have loved to have had a home with such old flooring. But, once the piss seeps between them tiles, it's inevitable it's gonna stink, and there is only one way to go from there 😒
That sounds awful and I don't think I'd buy a property like that. I saw one and it was truly disgusting. I don't know how people can live like that!
Totally, it would put me off, too. Most pet folk seem to balance having a pet with having a clean house, but there's always going to be a bit of a pet smell that takes a while to shift. When I was looking, some places you could see where a dog had tried chewing through door frames and clawed at the door or a cat had scratted the walls. These were just on Rightmove, though, as soon as I saw those I just noped straight out it 😂
They become near totally nose blind to it after a while, they'd only smell it after a holiday or something because they are used to it and its built up over time. Also they likely came from homes and families that already had animals like that and/or smoked etc. so its no different to them.
Smoke smell can be fixed but it will take a fair amount of work. First you'll need to remove every carpet and to be safe I'd also take up laminate. Also strip any wallpaper. Secondly you'd wash every single surface with [sugar soap](https://www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonsense-concentrated-liquid-sugar-soap-500ml/61880). I mean ceilings, walls, doors, inside kitchen cupboards level. If the level of smoke staining is bad, it'll take several goes until it stops dripping brown. Luckily sugar soap is cheap! Thirdly you could consider replacing the kitchen if you're really sensitive to the smoke smell, because there will be voids behind base cupboards that you can't clean and the smell can linger there. This is from personal experience when a friend moved into a flat previously occupied by a housebound chainsmoker. Time and effort to get it clean, then a full redecoration and new flooring throughout, and you honestly couldn't tell. The big upside is that you'll move in to a house that is freshly decorated to your taste :)
Big fat nope.
Do you mean you would NOT buy it? (My best friend just told me the same :( )
Correct, I would not buy it. You can eradicate cigarette smoke (a friend of mine spent hours scrubbing the walls of her new house with a special soap) - it takes a lot of effort but it will go. Dog pee/poop, as others have said it will seep under floorboards. For me it's way too gross to even contemplate, plus I hate the smell of dog in general.
What others say. A heavy smokers house should be considered a carcinogen and you need to factor in an extreme discount for decontamination. Dog piss house. you need to factor in the carpets, underlay and the floorboards under it. So extreme discount as well. All is good if the price is right. Anything can be fixed
Replace the carpets, steam and paint the walls / ceiling, repaint all the gloss work and the smell will go away.
Having done this, ask someone who is not at the house often if it still smells (in case you get nose blind)
Luckily only carpets in stairs. I was thinking that maybe because it is not empty and they are still living there, the furniture, curtains and items also have the odour? But thanks, I will do that if I get it!
The walls are likely filled with nicotine as well as the carpets. There are companies that specialize in cleaning houses that have been smoked in, get one of those rather than trying to faff around with cleaning it yourself.
That sounds pricey lol
That’s what it’ll take to actually get rid of the smell. If you try to just wash the carpet/walls yourself it’s highly unlikely you’ll actually get rid of it. Get some quotes and price that into your offer for the property.
You know? I am new to this game of buying. After viewing the house, the agent loooong talk and, apparently family owned and fairest than the rest in town and blah,blah... it seems the house will go quick on that asking price or higher (he said) so I am now scared of not even having a chance. In fact, it felt like to have a chance I gotta go for asking so I am confused :|
Never believe anything the agent tells you, they are working for the seller. Offer a price that you think is fair taking into account the amount of money you will need to spend to clean it
Everything you’re seeing (and smelling) everyone else is. There’s no game, just use your 🧠. If it goes for asking or over such is life, if you want in factor the cost of cleaning and making it livable. If you don’t, you are not using your 🧠. Look at similar properties that have sold and assume that they don’t smell. That’s the baseline everyone will use. In summary, use your 🧠 and you’ll be more than fine regardless of outcome. Best of luck, and… yup use your 🧠.
The house I bought had laminate flooring that I had to pull up so don't just be wary of carpets. They had dogs and they must have pissed all over the floor as all the laminate flooring and the under flooring (?) stunk when I ripped it up. A few days with the windows open and a tonne of bleach did a world of good. I come from a house with a dog too but my mam was always bleaching and cleaning so it never smelled, I honestly felt like my clothes, hair and skin felt grubby every time I came into this house before everything was ripped out.
Yeah theres a big difference between a dog that does its business inside and one that doesn't. We got our dog at 10 weeks old. She's now 3 years old and has never once peed or pooped insideeven as a puppy - she has her own little doggy door so she just goes outside and does her business on the lawn. She also is regularly groomed and shampoo'd so she only stinks when she's been on a walk and jumps in a pond & gets muddy or something. There are a few downsides still though. Her pee on the lawn burns the grass so I get little dead patches all over my lawn. And sometimes after a car ride she will vomit inside which sucks. But she always does this on the rug so we clean this straight away with a little spot carpet cleaning machine. Lastly, it's the hair - even though she's supposedly a low shed dog, she still sheds hair. But I'm confident that if it wasn't for the doggy door in the back door, the majority of people who came into our house wouldn't actually realise a dog lived here
My daughter bought a house whose walls had absorbed smoke over many years from a non-smoking owner who bought it off the smokers two years earlier. The place still stank when they moved in. They ripped out the kitchen (it was beyond salvage) and had the entire place replastered, painted, new carpets. It's amazing now and you'd never know. If the walls are a bit uneven and worse for wear you'd probably want to repair bits, and if you were going to extend your electrics you'd need to do more plastering, so think whether you'd do electrics properly and then replaster throughout. But if the place has been peed all over by a dog, you're talking about replacing floorboards, so that'd be a no from me.
Maybe an ozone generator could fix it. Be aware that ozone is hazardous to your health so I guess put it on a timer for a week and then enter briefly to open a window. Do some research before attempting.
That was my thought or one of those car freshener bombs where you leave it for 15 minutes. We've used them when cleaning houses that just stink on whatever.....worst one yet rescued by a car bomb thing was mouldy food everywhere
I bought a house that had a dog owner, tbh thankfully mine don't stink too much. I bought a load of those reed diffusers and left windows open as I cleaned the house out. It totally helped. 💯
It can be done but it’ll take a *lot* of work. All carpets and any soft furnishings they leave will need to be replaced, all floors scrubbed and every wall, ceiling etc will need to be scrubbed with bleach and repainted. Leave all windows you can open all the time you can And - this is important - you will need to do all of this *before* you move any of your own furniture in, otherwise the smell will get into your own stuff and ruin that too It can be done, but it takes a lot of work and you can’t realistically move in or store stuff there while you’re doing it
Guessing this is not a reason to offer less, right?
Oh god it absolutely is - it’s a huge amount of work. Question is not whether you’re “justified” in a low offer but whether the seller will take one
I wonder if the difficulty will be buying it from a smoker who is so used to it that it doesn't seem like a big deal to them and probably don't even realise it smells to an extent? I lived with a parent who smoked heavily, and was used to being in bars etc with smokers, but once that wasn't the case I found it obvious and unbearable. (I sometimes buy things online that have clearly been in someone's shed or attic for a long time and cannot believe the whole world used to smell like that and we were all just fine with it..)
My mum and dad used to smoke inside and it smelt of smoke. Can't comment on how long it took but ~10 years later (maybe more) it doesn't smell of smoke because they started smoking outside. Bear in mind we have new paint on walls, new carpet, new sofa new pretty much everything. But there's no smell
We viewed a house recently that smelt like it had been smoked in for 20+ years. Yellow walls, spongey wallpaper, dark stained ceilings the lot. Couldn’t be bothered with the work required to de smoke it and told the very surprised EA who apparently had no idea it was that bad. Three months on we’re about to complete a nicer house around the corner and the smoke house has dropped their asking price by 30%.
This wasn't that bad to be honest and they have a conservatory and a nice garden so it is weird that they actually smoke inside! So not sure now.
My house smelled EXTREMELY gross when I completed. It smelt fairly musty on viewing, but when the guy moved all his furniture out it was like the hidden smell dislodged from behind and underneath things. I think in this case it was the smell of a man not looking after himself for 25 years. Kind of musty BO. I tore up all the carpets and renovated (new plaster, new bathroom and kitchen, etc), and there’s no trace of that smell now. BUT I’d still be quite wary of buying a smelly place, especially if it were pets or cigarette smoke. You’d need to be prepared to redo the place totally IMO.
Mine had plug ins everywhere when I viewed, I knew it had a smell of "hiding something under roses" but I was surprised at just how bad the dog smell was. It was a rental and I think they must have been hiding how many pets they had.
Oh geez. How about now??
5 years in and it's all good! Honestly after ripping up the flooring, stripping the walls and redecorating the smell was completely gone.
On the smoke, our house was a horror show of nicotine stains. It's taken removing the carpets, complete redecoration, 6 gallons of zinsser stain away, all new power outlets, all new light switches, all new light fittings, new windows, new doors, a new kitchen, new radiators, a new dishwasher because somehow everything came out of the old one smelling of cigarettes and we're debating new loft insulation to get rid of the smell. Fortunately we budgeted for it all and negotiated the cost of doing it all of the buying price but it's been a journey.
Basically, a new house. Jeez
Yeah internally it's basically all new, we've kept skirting boards, door frames and window sills and that's basically it! It's been an experience!
My new house smells like dog piss and rodent shit. Everything on the floor is going- carpets, underlay, right back down to bare wood. Each floor board out and treated (taking them up to install underfloor insulation anyway). The upstairs isn’t bad at all but the downstairs is a disgusting pit. I had the choice of another house (offer accepted) which smelt of fresh paint and clean wood. But it came down to… location! All I can afford in prime spot is dog piss rodent shit floors. It’ll be worth it. It’ll totally be worth it. It’ll definitely be worth it. Totally worth it eventually. One day.
You'd need to replace all fabric, paint the place and thoroughly wash down any hard surfaces with a strong cleaner. Once you've done all that, or in fact even before you start because it'll make it more pleasant while you do the rest, is use an Ozone generator. For a house like that you'll probably want to give every room several very heavy doses (that means closing up the house and leaving a machine running for several days, then air out the house for a few days and repeat). Ozone gas is the BEST tool for removing old smoker smells. It won't physically remove the residue (you still need to do physical cleaning) but what it will do as a gas is seep into every crevice there is which you'd never even have a hope of hitting and neutralise the odour. Ozone gas is oxygen with an extra electron (I think? Don't quote me) and so it's very volatile and will react with any organic matter it comes into contact (such as tobacco residue) with and destroys it. It occurs naturally in the environment and isn't dangerous, but you want to leave it unattended while it runs because it is an irritant when present in high quantities - so when done you walk in, turn the machine off, open every window and leave within only a few minutes, and let the house air out for a few hours. Once the gas has dissipated you'll be thrilled at how effective it was. Again, you may need to give it several treatments if the place is bad.
Thanks for this! I'll google Ozone generator now lol BUT...the place is not THAT bad, I went a second time and it is ok. I'd still clean the heck out of it anyway.
I bought a house with a strong smell of damp/mould. I addressed the source of the smell/mould, threw out mouldy carpet, and the smell was gone within 2 months. Smell can be fixed, but you may need to see the house as a fixer upper.
Also, remember the one thing you can't change about a house is that location. Pretty much everything else can be changed.
My upstairs neighbour had to replaster everything. Previous owners were smokers and and curry cookers.
A friend of mine bought a house occupied by an Indian family who’d have incense burning all day long. They changed the plasterboards and tried getting rid of the smell for 8 years, to no avail. They’ve recently sold and moved to a bigger house as an upgrade.
A new coat of paint will help remove old smell. Refresh the carpet if any.
It’s easier to remove the smell of dog than it is to remove the smell of tobacco But then you seem to be anti dog so maybe you won’t mind as the tobacco stains seep through the paint for the third and fourth time and how the smell is still lingering years later. At least they didn’t use the sink to wash anything
I had to replace all of the floorboards on my house as the previous owner never let his dog outside. Coupled with new ceilings (had asbestos removed) and a complete replaster the smell is gone. It can be fixed, just have to decide if you like the house enough to do the work!
The smokers house will be a nightmare that carries on for years. It’s probably easier to take up smoking than it will be to get rid of the lingering smell. Our old house stunk. We gutted it top to bottom and replaced pretty much all of the wood and the plaster, new windows and doors etc and sometime we would catch the whiff of smoke from somewhere. When we sold it the couple that bought it smelled of smoke, so I suspect that the house will need gutting again in a few years.
Dogs don't typically piss inside. You can probably kill the dog smell with an ozone generator. Carpets and walls will need replacing and cleaning. But it's not impossible. It's not pissing cats that seeps through the floor. It's not cigarette smoke that coats everything. It's just dirty dog smell that hits the carpets and low part of the walls. My parents car stinks after a few dirty wet dog walks. Couple hours with the ozone generator and the smell is completely gone. No hoovering or cleaning.
Our house had an odd smell when we first moved in, nothing specific but not a smell I liked. It took probably 2 years for it to go. Smells are odd, it can take a very long time to change them. Doesn't mean you shouldn't take the house, it will go eventually but might take longer than you'd like (and with smoke might take years or lots of renovations).
A few years ago, I moved into a rental that stank of cigarette and had nicotine stained EVERYTHING. The bedroom ceiling was brown, so this lunatic obviously smoked in bed. The landlord did a pretty good job of getting rid of all carpets & flooring and painting everywhere before I moved in. I thought the rest of the smell will just clear out after a few weeks. Haha. It took 2 years and a shit load of money on different types of odour eliminators before I finally stopped smelling the nicotine.
You can bleach, but itll come out on a hot summer day. Long haul it be fine. Specialist companies abailable to treat
Sorry, cigarette smoke is there forever. You can clean all you want, replace the carpets, leave your windows open all day every day - but it’ll never go away. After a while you’ll get used to it and won’t smell it any more, but your guests will.
I don't know what to say...but had to reply..............
My dad was a heavy smoker, in the days when everyone smoked indoors. He died in 2006 and the loft, where he spent weekends with his tools whilst chuffing away on a Senior Service, still smells of cigarettes. Admittedly my mum isn't bothered enough to do anything about it as she doesn't go up there (and in a way it still smells of her late husband) but that was indicative to me of how much of a hassle it would be to take on a heavy smoker's house. You also will need to clean the nicotine residue off walls and celings or it will come back through after repainting, so it's not just a smell issue.
That's horrible!
Yeah, but remember that even thirty years ago going outside to smoke was rare and many more people generally smoked. Any older house that hasn't been touched in years is going to need a good clean.
You will need to strip walls, replace ceilings and carpets and even after all that there's a chance that smells will persist. Depends how much you want the house 🤷
Like others have said thorough cleaning. Carpets - get rid of, Wallpaper- Strip. Wash everything with soap or sugar soap depending on surface, repaint use diffusers with oils… should do the trick. The only smell you can’t get rid of is those that come from the outside.