Best ways to get rid of cigarett smoke smell

[janetwhitson]

We just had an offer accepted on a house and we are so excited to move in on January 15th! One problem, the previous owner was a smoker. What are the best ways to get the smoke smell out of the house. It will be cold outside and the majority of the smell is in the basement so it won't be easy to air it out. Any tips?

[Cinder]

We bought a smoker's house. Fortunately she smoked only upstairs; the downstairs was fine (I'm very sensitive to smells) and we didn't have to do anything to it. But the upstairs took a lot of work. First we pulled out all the carpet/padding and dh put polyurethane on the subfloor. We also tossed the curtains. Then we painted everything. I can't remember if we had to use primer first. That might be a good step. We replaced the baseboard but you might not have to. Part of why we replaced it is it was a dark stain color and we wanted white so it was easier to replace than paint over. The bathroom had wallpaper and it did not seem to absorb the smoke but we scrubbed it down anyway. Remember to do the closets as well. There was one we never got to and everytime I opened it I got a load of stale smoke odor. Eww. But everything else turned out fine.

[gardenmom5]

I tried to respond before, but not sure if it came through.

 

Our neighbors used four coats of kilz before the wallboard was sealed enough to not smell anything. Then they painted. They also ripped out all the carpet.

[gardenmom5]

okay - there does indeed seem to be a problem with the new system. I'm not the first person with the new system to have a double post problem. sigh.