My mother has been a heavy smoker her whole life.
Even after she was diagnosed with COPD, she continued to smoke.
But eventually her health deteriorated enough for her to agree to give up smoking. But getting the smell of stale smoke out of her house and clean air into her house was a big chore. While Mom was in the hospital, we rented a carpet and upholstery cleaner and cleaned her rugs, furniture and drapes. We bought the expensive soap, but it never completely got the smell of smoke out of the furniture and carpet. The smell was just too heavy. I even washed all of the clothes hanging in her closet. We washed Mom’s walls and cleaned the vents and that’s when we realized that the air ducts needed to be cleaned. Would the whole HVAC system need to be replaced? Both the heat and air conditioning came from a self contained unit in the backyard. It looked pretty old and was pretty loud, so I was pretty sure Mom needed a whole new HVAC unit. We called a local HVAC company and got an HVAC technician out as quickly as we could. We purchased a brand new HVAC unit with a whole house air purification system for my mother. That set us back a pretty penny, but I was inheritting the house anyways, and Mom is worth it. We also had her ductwork inspected, sealed and cleaned. The smell of smoke will always cling to some of my mother’s possessions, but her house does smell much better.