I just bought a house that has a really bad stale cigarette odor. I've painted the walls and ceilings with two coats of paint, and replaced all light fixtures,  flooring and window treatments. I thought that would do the trick, but the house still smells, especially in the afternoon when the house warms up. I thought it might be coming from the air ducts, but my husband doesn't smell anyting in there. He does smell it in the attic, though. Has anyone succeeded in removing the smell completely? Could it be in the walls? Please help

Is the house carpeted? If it is, try sprinkling baking soda over it and let it set over night, then vacuum it up. If that isn't it, try setting several shallow dishes (like dessert plates) around with white or apple cider vinegar in them. That should absorb the odor over a couple of days.

I'm sure there are other ways of doing it, though.  

I hate to say it, but you may always smell it from time to time - especially if you've never personally smoked and/or have a sensitive sniffer :-)  It almost seems to get into the actual wallboard and framework of a house.  I've used lots of bowls of vinegar throughout the house, washing down every surface reachable, putting in moisture with a humidifier and pulling it out with a de-humidifier, but like you, I can still smell it when the place gets hot or when I've been away a few days and first come in the door.  And we've lived here over 20 years!

If your hubby smells it upstairs, could it be in the insulation?  Maybe you could replace that a little along and that would help... I wish I had more advice for you...Liz

 

I've used this product called OdoBan which I purchased at my local Costco.  My car had the stale cigarette smell from the days when I smoked.  I put half a cup into a plastic cup and placed it on the floor of the car for a few days and it absorbed the smell.  I did the same for my garage that had a musty odor.  A co-worker placed a cup in with a television tightly sealed in a trash bag to remove the cigarette smell from the television.  Another wiped her walls with it to remove cigarette smell to sell home.   

Its made by Clean Control Corporation.

 

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When we bought homes with cigarette odor: we put out "OdoBan", "removed" all old carpet/pad/fabric & tossed it & "scrubbed" every surface we could access, then we "painted" every paintable surface. Cigarette smoke leaves a film on things, & you can see your cleaning water discolor as you are scrubbing surfaces.  Scrubbing seems to be one of the best ways to remove the film (& scent).

  In one (odoriferous) trailer the wood paneling was pulled apart from the wall.  I put OdoBan on pieces of tissue paper & put it behind the panneling before fastening the paneling to the wall, & put pieces of tissue with OdoBan throughout the trailer, including in the floor vents, (we weren't using the heater.)  When we were done I removed any bits of paper lying about & the paper in the vents.

Using an ionizing air cleaner may help. Febreze is helpful in dispensing odors too. Depending on what is under the house, a check under there could be helpful.  OdoBan (again) can be placed in crawl space.  If the crawl space is deep & has plastic covering the dirt, it might be helpful to replace the plastic...  

 Ann  

My BIL lives in an apartment building where one of the units had to be stripped back to the studs to get rid of odor.  The previous tenant had smoked in there for over 20 years.  The manager told him that it was cheaper in the end to do this, than spend lots of time trying other sloutions that might not work, they needed that unit rented to pay the bills.  Sometimes, maybe nothing else will work.

 Air Purifier is absolutely the simpliest step to remove smoke permanently. i've bought one for vehicles here: http://www.flpcorporate.com/cgi-bin/products.pl?products.category=Air%20Cleaners&_layout=Air%20Cleaners&_cgifunction=search and it works absolutely great

Newspapers - crumpled up to increase the exposed surface area - is also very good at absorbing odors, as is activated charcoal, along with the baking soda mentioned previously.  If your husband is smelling smoke odor in the attic, then it's probably in the insulation - so whatever you use needs to be used there.  Be very careful of fire risk, however, if you put anything - especially paper - in the attic.

Tar and nicotine really do soak into wallboard. We have one rental where the tenant and his crew chainsmoked for over 2 years, and three wall-washings with straight undiluted Mr Clean and two coats of primer/three coats of contractor white were applied before the tar finally stopped bleeding through the paint. 

Commercial cleaning chemical houses have a special compound to remove cigarette odor, and it is not cheap.  Best odor control I've found so far is Hill Mfg of Atlanta's Blue Bouquet II Concentrated Odor Control.  It can be diluted as much as 1/32.  I finally had to use it at 50% strength on a flooded, soured carpet  which was still stinking 3 weeks dry, but one spraying and airing took care of it. 

we had a rental that was horrible  ....  we end up tearing out walls . and we hired professional  painters ..