How to get cigarette smell out of your house? Lots and lots and lots of cleaning!
You can get the smell out of your house with a lot of work. We did a lot of research on how to get rid of the smell and this is the process that we came up with.
The cleaning supplies that you will need are:
1. Rubber gloves
2. Protective Masks
3. 1 Gallon Buckets
4. All purpose sponges
5. Dobie Sponges (these were the best to get that first and second coat of nicotine off of all the surfaces)
6. Lots of Vinegar
7. Lots of Ammonia
8. Lots of TSP
9. Odo Ban (Citrus Scent-it helps rid the smoke smell)
We cleaned every inch of the house in a 4 step process.
1st - We made a mixture of half water and half TSP.
With this mixture we cleaned all the floors, base boards, walls, doors, windows, cupboards (inside and out), light switch knobs, and the base floor where are the carpets use to be. The only surfaces that were NOT scrubbed down were the ceilings that had the popcorn texture. We mainly used the dobie sponge with this step and just a little bit of the big sponge. We had to mix a new bucket every 5 minutes with the first 2 steps because the water would go from clear to mud brown that quickly.
2nd - Ammonia, Vinegar, and Water
We used both kinds of sponges in the first 2 steps. We mixed water, vinegar, and a little amount of ammonia and went through all of the surfaces again!
3rd - Just clean water and a little bit of vinegar.
We went through all surfaces with the big all purpose sponge, clean water and a little bit of vinegar (to help with the smell)
4th - Odo Ban
Once all the surfaces were as clean as they were going to get. We went back over everything one more time with the big all purpose sponge. We went over everything with the odo ban mixture to help get rid of any last smells that were still trapped.
My mom and dad came up for the week to help us do the big first deep clean. When I say "we" I really mean Steve and my mom. They did all of the hard cleaning that took hours and hours! We had my dad do little odd jobs around the house, like take out staples and nails from the subfloor. I was the supply runner when we needed more cleaning stuff. I didn't do much since I was 7 months pregnant. Lucky me!!! :)
My mom and Steve cleaned from 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m for 5 straight days. CRAZY!
After those 5 days this is what our home looked like. It was so much cleaner! But we could still smell the cigarette smoke because the popcorn ceilings still had it trapped in it.
 |
| You can see the grossness in the dining room ceiling! |
Next step scrapping all the ceilings that had popcorn texture. There was absolutely no way that we were going to be able to clean all of the smoke and nicotine out of the popcorn ceilings. Plus, since our house was built in 1975 it was still legal to us asbestos in the popcorn ceiling.
The week after, the ceilings were scrapped and then the painters came in. The painters started with a product called Kilz primer. This product is really suppose to get rid of all unwanted smells in a house.
We had them put this Kilz everywhere they could. Everywhere!! The walls, ceilings, baseboards, sub floors upstairs. After that, they painted the walls a creamy beige color and the baseboards a creamy white.
Then it was demolition day!! The bathrooms were ripped out and re-done. New tile, tubs, toilets, lights, vanities and the closet walls were lowered!
The Flints ~ XOXO
No comments:
Post a Comment