Is there a better explanation than... smokin' ghost?

October 19, 2022 3:11 PM

Two non-smokers; we bought our house in 2015 and have lived here smoke free since then. Certain rooms of the house sometimes smell like cigarettes. Today, my wife's blouse smelled like cigarettes. What's up?

There doesn't seem to be a consistent rhyme or reason to when the cigarette smells appear (dry conditions or wet conditions, time of year, etc.). To our knowledge nobody hangs around the house smoking, and the places where the smell appears aren't consistently close to any outdoor spots (first floor laundry zone, third floor bedroom). To our (limited) knowledge the prior owners were not smokers.

I have a vague thought about former heavy smokers from long ago, and scent degassing periodically through paint. My wife is on Team Smoking Ghost. This is not a critical issue and our quality of life is fine, it's just a curiosity. But we'd love to get some insight or theories into the Mystery of the Phantom Puffer.

posted by Shepherd to Home & Garden (30 answers total)

Perhaps your wife is a secret smoker?
posted by roolya_boolya at 3:13 PM on October 19, 2022 [20 favorites]

Best answer: My house will sometimes smell like cigarettes from people walking by, neighbors smoking / grilling in the backyard, etc. Often the air coming in from only one window / vent is the culprit, the others smell fine. I'll sometimes pick up smells on myself from riding the bus, etc., and then forget until I smell those clothes again later.

Do you both notice it at the same time in the same places? Your individual sensitivity to smoke and other things you've smelled recently may play into this as well. I would be surprised if the paint is periodically smelling smokier than other times.
posted by momus_window at 3:34 PM on October 19, 2022

Theory: Your wife works with smokers, sometimes comes how with smoke-smelling clothes, and is more aware of the smell after she's changed into something less smelly and come back — at which point it's like "oh, huh, the laundry room smells like smoke."

(Or, yeah, she smokes, but plausibility is boring.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:38 PM on October 19, 2022 [6 favorites]

Mold can smell like cigarettes. I lived in a house where it smelled like that after rain. I'd also look at your washing machine, especially if it's a front-loader.
posted by credulous at 3:40 PM on October 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

Wife here: I do not smoke tobacco. I do smoke weed but this phantom scent has been around far longer than I have been indulging. I do know of a couple of smokers at work but I don't work with them directly. Scent is strongest in the third floor bedroom, which is a converted attic.
posted by Kitteh at 3:42 PM on October 19, 2022 [11 favorites]

The house I grew up in had a fire in one bedroom. From time to time, over the next decade-ish that I lived there, the smell of smoke would suddenly make itself known (hot days, humid days, hot and humid days). Not a particularly tobacco smoke-y smell, which is quite distinct, but distinct in its own way.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 3:56 PM on October 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

how's your air quality? in the PNW right now it's smokey, and lots of things smell like campfires
posted by OHenryPacey at 4:19 PM on October 19, 2022

I've lived in a few rental houses that were like that. I always just figured it was some combination of temperature, humidity, or pressure changes that would sort of "sweat" out the smell from long ago smokers periodically. I wasn't the owner, so I don't know if repainting or other work would have helped.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:22 PM on October 19, 2022

Best answer: Yeah, in my lived experience, a smoked-up room will 100% smell like smoke periodically for the rest of its natural life, regardless of cleaning/painting/ventilation efforts or how much time has passed.

The blouse one is weird. Maybe the fabric is especially prone to picking up and retaining odor?

If it’s a ghost I can’t blame them—smoke ‘em if you got ‘em!
posted by kapers at 4:30 PM on October 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

Do you have a closet shelf items sit on that could have residue?
posted by nickggully at 4:33 PM on October 19, 2022

Have you had COVID? Cigarette smells are a reasonably common olfactory hallucination post COVID and other viruses/neurological issues.
posted by shadygrove at 4:53 PM on October 19, 2022 [7 favorites]

Local teenagers smoke outside an air intake?
posted by Sunburnt at 5:06 PM on October 19, 2022

Do you have any fireplaces? How old is the house? What is the exterior, in terms of shingles or siding, especially in the affected rooms?

My old (over 90 yrs) house gets a distinctly smoky smell in rooms near the chimney sometimes, when the wind and sun and humidity conspire just right. And we have not used the fireplace ever in over three years of living here. Usually the smoke smell wafts out in warmer months, but not always.
posted by SaltySalticid at 5:15 PM on October 19, 2022

I buy garbage bags that are partially recycled and sometimes smell a bit like cigarette butts.
posted by snofoam at 5:37 PM on October 19, 2022

Although it typically manifests more as a Kerosene smell, the combustion products of polyurethane fumes (varnishes, sealants etc) smell quite disturbing when you're not expecting them. Also they'd be strongest around a natural gas flame, such as a dryer or hot water heater potentially.
Thus my wild speculation for how your wife's blouse got the stank on it... whatever clothes are run in the dryer after fumes have been introduced anywhere into the house get absolutely permeated with funk.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 5:44 PM on October 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Sometimes we smell smoke in our house during heating season, and we assume it's because of old cigarette smoke residue on the radiators.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 6:31 PM on October 19, 2022

Best answer: In my opinion there is a difference between fresh cigarette smoke (from a currently-being-smoked cigarette) and stale cigarette smell (from previously smoked cigarettes). That would likely be your biggest clue. But either could easily be true - a weird air current periodically drifting smoke from somewhere/someone you wouldn't expect, or a previously-smoked-in room occasionally leaking smoke smell. I've noticed recently that I will, once in a while, catch a whiff of my neighbor smoking outside, and she's across a road, behind a 6 foot fence, and a good 40 feet away. But sometimes when I'm gardening I'll catch a smell or two so distinct that for a moment it's like she's standing right next to me.
posted by storminator7 at 6:44 PM on October 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

Our linen closet periodically smelled very faintly of smoke during the first year we lived here. I think certain places just air out less quickly.
posted by slidell at 7:16 PM on October 19, 2022

My BIL had a corporate rental apartment once and the prior occupant had been a heavy smoker. Turns out when they painted the apartment they didn't paint the interior of the closets, and the smell infiltrated his clothes. Could that explain the blouse?
posted by pixiecrinkle at 7:17 PM on October 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Our bedroom smelled smoky when we first moved in but basically was smoke scent free after painting. However for years afterwords warm days with full sun before shading maples got their leaves meant faint smell of smoke at bedtime. It took us a long time to figure out the pattern.
posted by Mitheral at 7:21 PM on October 19, 2022

Best answer: there is a difference between fresh cigarette smoke (from a currently-being-smoked cigarette) and stale cigarette smell (from previously smoked cigarettes)

As a smoker, i completely agree with the above. And i would add neither neither a burning cigarette nor stale cigarette smoke smells at all like smoke from a fire. In addition there is the quite unpleasant odor of old cigarette butts, eg like in an ashtray.
If it is smell of currently smoking cigarettes it might be wafting in from outdoors? Scents carry far.
Stale cigarette smoke indoors can remain very long in any porous materials.
Or possibly you had a guest or handyman who secretly smoked and left their cigarette butts in a stupid place (eg window ledge, crack in the driveway, planter box, garage drainage hole, etc).
posted by 15L06 at 10:47 PM on October 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Oh, definitely a ghost. If having a resident smoking ghost whose only interference in your lives is the occasional cig-stink, this adds to your quality of life (in the silliness category) and thus is the preferable answer.

It is also entirely possible that sometimes you get a little cigarette smoke or ash on something and you only notice it after the fact when you’ve been away from the smell for a while. Most brains are really good at ignoring irrelevant sensory information when there’s a bunch of stuff going on, and then you get home and chill and come back to your laundry and are like “omg how did I not notice this???”

But ghosts are more fun, so ghost it is. Name them Philter.
posted by Mizu at 10:53 PM on October 19, 2022 [8 favorites]

Olfactory hallucinations are a thing. Every once and a while I catch a whiff of peppermint, no known reason.
posted by Marky at 11:01 PM on October 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

If the third floor attic had ever been a rental space, my guess is that someone opened a window and smoked out of it and that smell has permeated things like wood that let go of smells intermittently.
posted by Bottlecap at 3:12 AM on October 20, 2022 [3 favorites]

Smoke infiltrates every inch of a home. It could be that the residual scent becomes apparent at just the right atmospheric conditions in the home.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:27 AM on October 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

Best answer: There's some crossover for Old House Smell and Former Indoor Cigarette Smoker Home Smell for me. Probably because a lot of old houses have had former smokers in them. But now my nose/brain thinks the mVOC old house smell smells like cigarettes even if everyone disagrees with me and there has never been a smoker there.
posted by firefly5 at 9:13 AM on October 20, 2022

My house smells a little like cigarette smoke whenever I disturb the drywall. Prior owners smoked, and we painted everything, replaced floors and trim; it just penetrates that deeply, amazingly. Closets have the worst of it for some reason, which may explain it being on clothes; just airs out less slowly I guess.
posted by supercres at 9:17 AM on October 20, 2022

Oh and air pressure variations: may force some air from interstitial spaces into living spaces at times.
posted by supercres at 9:18 AM on October 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Humidity has a significant role in this, IME. On days with high humidity, the old smoke smells in our house leach right out of the walls and into the air.

The blouse thing doesn't surprise me at all. The biggest smoke-smell reservoir in our house is the closet where the previous owner kept his coats. If the blouse was in a closet where smokey clothes were kept, if weather conditions were just right, and if the blouse is made of something that likes to absorb and hold smells (polyester does this) then this is exactly what you'd expect to see.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 11:17 AM on October 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, everyone. Kind of arbitrary Best Answers that orient around directions to look or potentially valuable clues.
- old stale cigarette smell
- we don't always smell it at the same time
- we're on a corner lot with no littoral, literally 18" of grass between the house and sidewalk

We're likely now going to:
- pay attention to humidity
- tell each other when we smell stale cigarettes
- continue to think ghosts are pretty cool
posted by Shepherd at 3:08 PM on October 20, 2022 [1 favorite]