You can also put vinegar on a dish towel and wave it around your head. sounds silly, but it works, my mom's been doing it for years.

No, no, no- forget the smelly air-freshener stuff. Place dry coffee grounds in a couple of saucers and distribute them around your apartment. The grounds will absorb the lingering smell of smoke. Good luck :)

I tried out the fresh2 bulbs that were here on treehugger a few months ago. They're just CFLs that act as air fresheners when on. Don't know about smoke, but it gets rid of the ferret smell in my apartment.

My mom uses a secial "anti-tobacco" candle. She bought it in the UK,I think it's available across the EU - hopefully in the US, too!

I feel your pain, seriously. There was a guy who lived downstairs from me, he was beyond chain-smoker. BEYOND. When I would come home, the hallway was filled with smoke like in most offices in the late 60s.. My apartment smelled RANK. The funny thing was, I was a smoker at the time and even I thought it was disgusting. It woke me up at night and was just too much for me to take. Several nights, in the dead of 10 degree winter, I would open up both front doors to the apartment at 3 in the morning in a questionable neighborhood, just to get some relief.

I finally bought rolls of draft-sealing tape. The grey, foam that comes in rolls with adhesive on the back. I did the outside of the door, the inside of the door and every crack. It made the door hard as hell to shut but I finally got some sanity.

I'm not a confrontational person, my temper is tooo high for anything but adapt or stab. Those are much choices. I chose to adapt.

Thank God he was evicted a few months later.

Good luck.

Find a really stinky, clear substance, such as urine. Or create rotten-fish water. Put it in a mister bottle, and spray under and on the offending tenant's door whenever you come home. Perhaps the person will move out.

Have the EPA take an air-quality assessment of your home, then complain to the landlord and threaten to sue if the smoker is not evicted or forced to change his ways.

i had just signed my lease the day my water broke early into my pregnancy,and was transported to a hospital 2 hours away for two months-i had no idea what kind of smell was waiting for me in my new apartmant-its ridiculous- i came home with a preemie who happened to have serious lung issues and just my luck i get the one with 15 people a day next door smoking like crazy, you can smell it in the hall and more importantly in my home it fills the kitchen and living room quickly and you can open as many doors and windows as you want but within 3 minutes of closing them the odor is back-we have super patched every single crack and hole in the walls we could find even places where there were no holes-im very worried about my son he keeps getting chest infections or colds where hes very congested i am so fed up i am ready to move -my lease dosnt end untill july-helpfull hints would be greatlyappreciated!!!
thanks,
holly

I am suffering from the same exact issue in my current apartment. We moved in in January of this year and noticed a faint smoky smell and the lady showing me the apartment said the previous owner smoked but that they replaced the entire carpet and would be willing to do an air clarifying bomb. I allowed them to do that (with me having to pay for the expense of putting my 2 cats in a kennel for the day). After about 4hrs the smell was back.

Just this past weekend, we caught our neighbor downstairs on her patio w/ 2 friends rolling joints. So now not only do I have to suffer through the smell of cigarette's - I have to smell pot as well. I've tried air fresheners, scented candles, putting dryer sheets on my air filter - the works and NO LUCK!! The apartments said they have done all they can at this point other than moving me to another location....if this comes as an option - I will definitely request GROUND LEVEL so smoke won't rise into my apartment through the air ducts.

I completely empathize with every poster here. We went through a chronic smoker in the downstairs apartment for 2 years, who smoked in the balcony every 5 minutes day and night. It even smelled differently than nicotine sometimes. At that time the manager couldn't do anything about it since it was not a non-smoking building. Then when they sent out an apartment survey, I wrote my problems. May be some others had the same problem. They soon made it a non-smoking building, but that lady had time since her lease got over. That was too long for us, so we moved out. I sincerely hope the person with the newborn has found some solution by now. The management may help you if you ask them kindly and insist they do something or cancel your lease. I wouldn't also confront anyone, especially since that person had a rowdy noisy boyfriend once. You never know what kind of person you will deal with. I used to be irritated lots of times that somebody was violating my air. But please speak up, for so many of us just keep quiet to be nice. Of course, you may mask the odor, but not the health effect.

I have a nicotine sucking freak living in the apartment below mine and I have had the problem of cigarette smoke entering my place for almost a year now. He is a chain smoker and is home ALL DAY LONG, just sucking down the nicotine. You can actually see nicotine stains on the walls in our bathroom, it's disgusting!!! My kids and I have problems with our nose and eyes burning. I am going to contact the EPA and have them run test, so that I can prepare to sue the landlord.

Not that it helps the problem, but I'm encouraged that this is quite a common problem, perhaps smokers and those who don't suffer this will begin to take it more seriously.

We live in a middle terrace house and our neighbour must chain smoke- our cloakroom, understairs cupboard, and - worst - bathroom reek of it - both "fresh" and stale smoke.

Fortunately I'm on good terms with her landlord, and the tenant hasn't been paying her rent, so it's one more thing to evict her. Sad in some way that it's got to this, but it's her irresponsibility that has caused it - she broke her contract.

It doesn't help people who live next door to people allowed to smoke, or who own their home, but it means that for us, in about two weeks or so, the smell should be gone.

Old terraced houses are apparently prone to this kind of thing, because the adjoining cavity walls aren't always sealed properly. I've been taping up cracks by the floor and pipe conduit - it looks awful but it made it slightly better. Vinegar. Orange peel. You name it. The smell is still pretty bad. I've woken up at 3am the last two nights because the smell has wafted through to the bedroom. YUK!

Anyway, rant over. Hopefully you all get your problems sorted too.

Let's hear it for the non-smokers who enjoy FRESH air!

You might like to try catalytic lamps - Wiki "Fragrance Lamp" for more info. There are several brands available (in the US). The catalytic combustion destroys the bad molecules, reducing them to carbon dioxide and water (if i remember correctly). It was originally used in hospitals to clean the air of germs, now we use chemicals... Good luck!