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Remove smoke smell from bathroom

8 years ago

last modified: 8 years ago

I recently purchased a house. It was an investor flip and completely remodeled. A few days after moving in and airing out the new paint smell, the master bathroom smells like cigarette smoke. Luckily it's the only room I smell it in, with the strongest coming from the small toilet room.

It is a small room maybe 4x5 that was repainted recently, has a cabinet, toilet, and tile flooring.

So far I have done these (all of which helped a small amount, but the problem still exists):

Run an ozone generate for a couple hours.
Dusted and scrubbed the top of the cabinet that was covered in dust.
Caulked the base boards and trim around the door to seal up any gaps.
Removed the exhaust fan and duct (Planning to replace with a new one)

I'm thinking I should tear out the cabinet next and repaint behind and around it where they wouldn't have been able to reach when they repainted. While I'm at it I figure since it's a small room I should just repaint the entire thing to be sure.

What else will work?

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Comments (4)

millworkman
8 years ago
Cabinets, Flooring, Drywall, Insulation will all be saturated with smoke if a heavy smoker lived there for a long period of time. May need to change it all.
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loonlakelaborcamp
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
When a car has smoke smell, the local car lot takes a couple pound can of fresh coffee and puts it in trays in the car, in the sun for a week. The oils in the coffee grounds bind with the tars from the cigarettes.

I did the same in a small bathroom in a rental after scrubbibg everything in site (it had been freshly painted) l-put the coffee grounds in a crock pot on low. Seemed to do the trick, couldn't do more to the rental.
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wacokid
7 years ago
You cannot mask the smell with paint. You can try, but the smell will come back. I rented a home, it had just been painted and looked great, after a few weeks the cig smell started and got worse every day. We moved.
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toxcrusadr
7 years ago
Activated charcoal can help absorb the stuff. Lay out some trays of it in out of the way places - inside the cabinet with the doors open for example. You might try baking soda as well - if any of these compounds are weakly acidic, they will be absorbed by baking soda. I recently had a terrible fridge odor from rotten beans and once I removed them, it still stunk until I put a plate of baking soda in there. Not guaranteed to work but it doesn't cost much. I would also leave the door open rather than shut so it can dissipate.
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