Tobacco Smoke: Helpful Hints On Mitigating Damage

7/19/2017 (Permalink)

Does your home reek of tobacco smoke? Here are tips on how to remove the odor

It’s one thing to bring home smoke odor on your clothes and in your hair after a night of partying, but when that smell invades your home thanks to inconsiderate guests and their furtive smoking breaks, you must act quickly once they’re gone. Unfortunately, that smoky odor will permeate the fabrics in your home and will hold onto that odor, leaving you to smell it for days and weeks later.

You may not be able to easily remove all of the fabric from your home – particularly furniture, like a large sofa – but it’s very important to move all fabric items to an area unaffected by smoke, no matter how inconvenient. These items can include any decorative pillows, bedding, blankets, and especially curtains and drapes. If you have a washing machine that can handle large loads you should be able to run all of these items through a cold wash cycle with two (2) cups of vinegar added to the load.

Be sure to not use high heat to dry these items. The heat appears to reactivate the smoky smell, setting it permanently into the fabric. Instead, use a low heat or fluff cycle; if you can, line dry the items in the sun, which will be even more effective in removing the odor. And any light breeze along with the sunshine will be a bonus.

If you have a large, bulky item like a comforter, you may need to take it to your local dry cleaner. Put all of the smelly items into a trash bag and bring them to the cleaners; be sure to inform them that you require help in removing smoke odor. They can then use all of the professional techniques in their arsenal to banish the smoky smell. You may also want to include delicate items like curtains and window treatments. Window treatments can be expensive, so you don’t want to risk ruining them in your washing machine.

Once all of the items are washed and rid of the smoke odor, you don’t want to start the process all over again by returning them to a smoky home. Instead, put all of those clean items into fresh trash bags and store them in your garage or other area unaffected by smoky odor. You can return these items to their rightful locations once you have removed the odor from the home itself.

Remember that time is of the essence and these steps must be completed rather quickly. If you do one step without doing the others, the odor will simply redistribute itself around the home. If multiple rooms are affected, you’ll have to work on one room at a time. Once a room has been cleared of smoke, be sure to seal off the clean room as best you can. You don’t want smoky odor traveling to other areas – particularly an area you’ve just cleaned.

If you ever need help removing tobacco odors from the home, or need help mitigating a fire damage be sure to contact us as soon as possible. Dealing with carcinogens is never something that should be shrugged off as not a big deal. SERVPRO of Oldham/Shelby prides itself on being a qualified and honest home restoration company.