Are you trying to sell an inherited house or your home, and it has a stench of cigarette smoke? How do you get smoke smell out of a house? To ensure you can sell the house, you will need to follow the steps in this guide to get rid of the smoke smell.
No one wants to buy a house that smells of smoke. As such, you will need to use air fresheners and steam clean the furniture. Also, tackle hard surfaces with cleaning supplies. You will benefit from using baking soda and white vinegar to remove the smoke odor.
Want to learn more about how to get smoke smell out of a house? Then keep reading!
Tackle Hard Surfaces
Many of the areas in the house that will be most affected by a smoky smell are hard surfaces. As such, you will need to remove smoke smell and odors from:
- Drywall
- Light fixtures
- Appliances and lightbulbs
- Handles and doorknobs
- Floors
- Ceilings
- Doors
- Windows
- Upholstered furniture
You should tackle all these hard surfaces and clean them well to remove smoke odors and smoke molecules. You will need to use different types of cleaning agents, including:
- Apple cider vinegar
- Baking soda
- White vinegar
- Warm water with a cleaning solution
Along with odor removal agents, you may also want to use essential oils to improve the air quality in the house. The best essential oils are lavender, lemon, sage, eucalyptus, and mint. White vinegar works great at absorbing odors and removing a lingering smoke smell in the upholstery on furniture.
Get a cup of white vinegar and leave them around the house to make the smoky smell go away. You can also boil vinegar and let it diffuse throughout the home.
Steam any clothes left in the house with the white vinegar after they go through the washing machine. You should also add a half cup of vinegar to your laundry before putting it through the wash. That should remove the lingering odors.
To remove smoke residue and the cigarette smell from hard surfaces, mix warm water with two cups of vinegar and start scrubbing down these surfaces. Use that cleaning solution to wash ceilings, countertops, floors, walls, furniture, and appliances.
In fact, you might want to refinish your floors if deep cleaning them did not remove stains and odor. The walls need to get washed and repainted as well.
You may also benefit from using a steam cleaner. Also, open windows should help with air circulation and remove odors. You may also want to use a smoke-eliminating candle, which can absorb cigarette smoke odors. Make sure to use organic soy candles.
You can get an air purifier and ozone machines to filter the air in the house and remove nicotine, tar, and smoke smells. Ozone machines emit bubbles that pop and remove the odors while purifying the air. However, they’re not safe for humans or pets. Therefore, only use them in empty rooms. You can get these tools from your local hardware store.
Air purifiers are known to remove every bit of smoke smell from the air in the house. These purifiers can also eliminate allergens, pet dander, and smoky smells.
If the house smell is so bad that you can’t get rid of it, you may want to hire a professional cleaning service. They have the knowledge and equipment to eliminate the worst smoke smells.
Wash and Deodorize Soft Items
So, how do you get smoke smell out of a house? You will need to wash the softer items. Any fabrics, upholstery, rugs, or clothing should get thrown into the washing machine. Add some white vinegar to the regular detergent you use to get rid of the smoky smell.
If any soft items have tar, nicotine, and resins left, use a cleaning agent to wipe away these cigarette components.
Furthermore, you should change the filters in your HVAC system to remove any bad smells. For the best results, you will need to hire an expert to get your HVAC system serviced and cleaned out.
You can also add air purifiers and air fresheners to ensure the home has a better scent. In addition, you may want to throw certain old furniture and smelly things straight into the trash. You might want to throw out those old drapes that absorbed the smoke.
The carpets and heavy curtains often absorb the cigarette smell the most. As such, you will need to deep-clean the carpets. You may want to hire a professional cleaning team to get rid of stains and odors from the carpets. Also, you should wash and steam clean the curtains to remove the bad odors.
Then, make sure to wipe down all soft surfaces like furniture. Use vinegar to clean the windows and mirrors in the house. Wipe off the vinegar with some clean, warm water. Baking soda also works as a great way to clean soft surfaces like furniture and carpets. Generally, baking soda absorbs bad smells, and you can easily vacuum it up after use.
However, before you use vinegar or baking soda on a soft item, test it out on a concealed portion to make sure the fabric doesn’t get damaged. A few other things you’ll want to clean with vinegar or baking soda include wall hangers, fixtures, shades, and chandeliers.
By removing the smoke smell from your house, you will make it easier to sell the place, and you may even set the sale price at a higher value. Research shows that a house can lose up to 29 percent of its value if it has a very strong smoky smell. These are the cheapest ways to increase home value:
- Removing bad smells
- Deep cleaning a home
- Painting the walls
- Repairing a few rooms
If you accept an offer on your house without the help of a realtor, you will have to gather all the paperwork needed to sell a house by owner on your own. When the closing day comes, you will need to handle signing documents and covering certain closing costs.
Does the seller pay closing costs when selling a house in Wisconsin? Generally, the seller pays for the buyer’s title insurance policy, the title search, and prorated property taxes.
Use Baking Soda to Remove the Smoke Smell
Baking soda is an excellent odor-absorber. It’s a natural product that you can buy in any grocery store. To absorb the stench, sprinkle plenty of baking soda on the floors, tables, countertops, stoves, appliances, and furniture.
You will want to sprinkle the baking soda and then let it sit for a while. Wait at least 20 minutes for it to absorb into the furniture, carpet, and fabric before vacuuming it.
For the absolute best results, you may want to leave the baking soda overnight and then vacuum it up in the morning. Make sure to clean your vacuum filter between sessions. You can do this with rugs, carpets, curtains, cushions, and other furniture.
Also, put a bunch of baking soda in several bowls. Leave those bowls around the house for a few days to absorb the bad smells. Essentially, baking soda can work well to remove cigarette smoke odors. However, you can also set out bowls of coffee grinds to remove the lingering smells.
You can also use baking soda to scrub the smoky smell from upholstered furniture. Also, make sure to throw all cushion covers into the laundry and deep-clean them in a washing machine. Add a bit of apple cider vinegar to your laundry detergent when you wash towels, slipcovers, linens, and bedsheets.
However, if you have leather furniture, you want to use something other than baking soda. Instead, you can use a mixture of warm water and vinegar to wipe off the tar, nicotine, and smoky smell.
Another great idea is to make a mixture of baking soda and vinegar. Put the mixture into a spray bottle and spray it on fabrics, curtains, and carpets.
Essentially, baking soda is an excellent choice for a deodorizer because the product is odorless and absorbs bad smells.
Conclusion
After reading the guide above, you no longer have to wonder, “How do you get smoke smell out of a house?” You can scrub away the bad smells by using air purifiers, white vinegar mixtures, and baking soda. You can use steam cleaners and add essential oils to improve the air quality in the house.
Once your home smells better and no longer has those smoky odors, you can put the house on the real estate market. However, if you need to sell a house fast in Milwaukee and don’t have time to clean it or renovate it, you can try selling your property in its as-is condition to a cash home buyer.
Cash home buyers in West Allis will complete a home sale in only a few short weeks and purchase a place in its as-is condition. Luckily, we buy houses Glendale locals love, so contact us today.
