When you live with a smoker, you get really used to the smell of tobacco smoke, even if you are lucky enough to live with someone who only smokes outside. However, many smokers smoke in their cars and their homes, partially because they aren’t allowed to smoke anywhere else. It’s not until you try to do carpet and upholstery cleaning do you realize the damage tobacco smoke does.
Not Much Hope
There’s very little effective carpet and upholstery cleaning you can do to entirely remove the tobacco smell and stains. The best carpet cleaning technique usually is to buy another carpet. All the rest is damage control, where you the best carpet and upholstery cleaning hope you can have is to slow down the eventual rate of decay. When living with a smoker, you never want to get any carpeting or furniture in white. It will turn tan or grey very rapidly.
When Selling Home Or Car
You can loose a lot of money in the value of your home just because a smoker lived in it. Non-smokers can get detect tobacco smoke even when the smoker has been kicked out of the house or car for a few months. Regular carpet and upholstery cleaning products you can buy at the store will not work for long-term tobacco smoke damage. Your best bet is to hire a professional service to do your carpet and upholstery cleaning.
If you want to trade in your car or other vehicle and a smoker has regularly used the vehicle, consider that you will loose at least $500 in your trade in because it will take a lot of professional carpet and upholstery cleaning for the dealer to finally get eh car looking and smelling decently again. You might get more money just giving the car away to charity and getting the tax refund from that.
Better Than Nothing
Even if you can’t get professional carpet and upholstery cleaning and can’t get your housemate to stop smoking, doing whatever you can for cleaning is better than nothing. You want to keep your home as well-ventilated as possible. Houseplants can often absorb some tobacco smoke and put out oxygen, but not always. Striking a match and letting it burn can often neutralize the smell of tobacco smoke very quickly.
Just the act of cleaning can raise your self-esteem, even if you can’t get all of the stains out. You can at least get rid of dirt, dust mites, pollen and mold spores in regular carpet and upholstery cleaning.
