How to Get Rid of Cigarette Smoke Odor Pesky smells like smoke odor, are often difficult to get rid of completely. Typically, it’s easier to call a professional in this instance. Smoke odors can come from a variety of instances. If you’ve had a small grease fire in the kitchen, the lingering smell can affect the taste of your dinners. Likewise, smoke from cigarettes causes odors that are unbearable to most people. So, what can you do to eliminate the smoke odor from cigarettes? There are many tried and true tricks out there to get the process started. 1. Ventilate Proper ventilation is the first step to removing smoke odor in addition to removing all smoking products such as ashtrays. Smoke finds its way into all the little cracks and crevices of your home, places you didn’t even know were there. For this reason, you need to force clean, clear air into your home. Circulating air from the inside will not cut it; it needs to come from outside. To ventilate properly, place fans outside your doors and face them inwards. Allow them to circulate fresh air in, especially during the cleaning process. 2. Wash Thorough washing is the next step in ridding your home of smoke odor. Wash all solid surfaces with a water and vinegar solution. Additionally, make sure you wash all curtains, pillows, blankets, and anything else that you can wash. Baking soda naturally neutralizes odors and does it by bringing acidic and basic odor molecules into a more neutral pH or state. Likewise, hydrogen peroxide deodorizes by giving oxygen to a contaminated or smelly area. However, this chemical can act like bleach and should be used carefully and only on certain surfaces. Make sure you wash or dry clean all items. It’s important to clean your clothes as well as clothes, linens, and pillows before you plan to clean the rest of the home. 3. Vacuum Vacuum using a machine with a high-efficiency filter. Start from the top and work your way down. You can rent a carpet steam cleaner and shampoo the carpet yourself. Or you can hire a professional to clean the carpet for you. Sprinkle a liberal amount of baking soda on top of your carpet surfaces and leave it to soak for a day. The baking soda will absorb the smell of smoke and any moisture in the carpet. Then vacuum the carpet to remove the baking soda. Obviously, this is not a quick fix by any means. Eliminating smoke odors from cigarettes require a lot of work. However, taking the steps mentioned above are a start. If all else fails, contact Get Restoration Experts. When you need a professional cleaning, we do everything we can to help you get your home back the way you deserve and want it.
The Importance of Smoke Odor Removal in Apartment Buildings Smoke odor removal restores pleasant, healthy air to your property and your residents. This is more than a mere courtesy; it’s a necessity. Smoke odor often signals lingering threats to tenant health and safety. It usually causes upper respiratory discomfort and sometimes severe infections. The smell alone may cause problems for tenants with asthma or those with PTSD. Smoke odor drives away potential tenants and buyers, damaging your finances along with your future opportunities. Resident Health and Safety After a fire, you have a lot of repairs to worry about. You must consider the structural safety of burnt rooms and sections. Flames may have carved a hole in a wall or the roof, allowing nature to sneak inside to create more problems. You must deal with insurance, aid residents affected by the incident, and balance finances. All of these concerns come second to the health and safety of your residents. Moral and ethical concerns aside, injuries and illness created by lingering traces of fire cause significant problems for landlords. If you plan to restore and rent the damaged space again, you must ensure it’s truly safe for habitation. Smoke odor is a symptom of lingering debris and potentially harmful gases. Ash alone can cause severe respiratory issues, and your tenants wouldn’t struggle to win a lawsuit if they developed respiratory problems in a space with a noticeable lingering smoke odor. Don’t gamble with your tenants’ health or your finances. A clean environment is better for everyone. Property Value A better, cleaner space attracts better, more affluent tenants. No one wants to pay full price for an apartment that smells bad. A tenant certainly doesn’t want to live somewhere that might harm his or her health. Just knowing there was a fire in a particular space will discourage many potential renters. If you suffered one fire, you might suffer another. Smoke odor removal banishes the final traces of an accident. Without lingering smells to discourage potential tenants, you’ll have a much easier time renting the space. If you decide to sell the property, the smoke odor may discourage potential buyers. First impressions matter. Smells are linked to memory and emotion, so if a space smells like smoke, it won’t leave anyone feeling optimistic and excited. No one wants to live with the memory of a fire. No one wants to invest in a damaged property, either. Potential buyers understand that if they don’t like the smell, their prospective tenants won’t, either. Removing the odor is the final, critical step to reclaiming a restored space after a fire. It boosts property value and encourages prospective tenants or buyers to see the apartment for its potential rather than its past. The sooner you arrange for professional smoke odor removal, the faster the process will go. Your residents will be safer, and you’ll have a much easier time renting or selling the property in the future. Smoke odor removal is good for everyone, especially landlords and apartment complex owners.