Help remove the smell of cigarettes from the walls

[Alan Rutherford]

Ozone, at best, will help the air smell better. In the OP's situation, he's going to have to remove or encapsulate (paint) the residue as much as possible first and that's not going to be completely successful. After doing that if he stays in the place long enough in a year or so he'll be able to tell us what worked and what didn't.

I don't want to link to another site here, but if you Google "ozone EPA" (without the quotes) and look for the EPA's position on ozone generators as air cleaners, you'll find an in-depth discussion of their effectiveness and health risks.

[Jon Grider]

Lots of good remedies here. My anecdotal experience comes from a truck my son bought for a bargain price a number of years ago. Someone or something had died and decomposed for a while in that truck. The smell was horrendous. What worked was "Odoban" from Sam's club. We sprayed everything, fabric seats, headliner, carpet and all hard surfaces as well. After a couple of apps, the smell was gone. If you go this route, read the directions, IIRC the fumes are not healthy and take a while to dissipate.

[Leo Butler]

TSP (tri-sodium phosphate) is a very good smoke smell/stain remover. If you've removed the wallpaper and applied a primer to the walls and ceiling already, this won't help now. It will still help on any cabinets, doors, appliances, etc. Everything will be permeated by the smoke particles. Between the recommended primers and a FULL cleaning, it should improve the situation a lot but it will probably be a while before your nose can't detect anything.

Some friends of mine bought a house owned by a heavy smoker, and they had to have the "popcorn texture" on the ceiling removed, washed down all the walls with TSP which they said quickly turned the water in the bucket brown quickly, then primed and painted. Not fun, but it worked.

Good luck!

[Rick Potter]

I remember in the 1960's, washing the walls in the kitchen/living room of fire stations, and seeing yellow runnels of nicotine running down the walls. The walls in those days were all painted in Zolotone Whimsey Green gloss. With the battleship tile floors, we could actually hose them off. Extra 10 points if you know what Zolotone was.

I have clear memories of walking in to those rooms and seeing the smoke level, clearly just above the heads of the seated firemen. Many of these guys were WWII vets, one was on the Arizona. Our retirement system seemed to be based on the average fire guy dying within about 5-6 years of retirement, mandatory at age 60.

The good old days. Young guy, working at a hot house.

[Bill Dufour]

The heating ducts and air handler will be coated inside.
Bill D