The New Apartment Smells Like Someone Else: What To Do First

Airing it out is not the fix

Open windows help while they are open, and the smell comes back the same evening. That is the sign that it is not the air, it is what the air is passing over.

So the useful question is not how to get rid of the smell but where the residue is. In an empty apartment there are about six candidates, and the smell almost always comes from one or two of them rather than from everywhere at once.

The six places to check

• Carpet and the pad underneath it, which is the biggest reservoir by far and the one that survives a surface clean.
• Walls and ceilings, particularly if the smell is smoke or heavy cooking.
• Cabinet and closet interiors, where the air is still and the smell concentrates.
• Appliance seals and interiors: fridge gasket, oven, dishwasher filter, and the washing machine door seal.
• Vent covers, which hold a greasy dust layer that smells when air moves through it.
• Drains in the kitchen and bathroom, where a dry trap or biofilm can be the whole story.

Walk the apartment room by room and sniff at each of these directly rather than standing in the middle of a room. The source is usually obvious once you are close to it.

The order to work in

Start with the drains, because it takes ten minutes and eliminates a candidate. Pour water down every drain including ones you will never use, and clean the stoppers.

Then appliances and vent covers, then cabinets and closets washed and left open to dry, then walls if the smell is smoke. Carpet last, because if everything above is done and the smell remains, the carpet is the answer and you now have a specific thing to ask the building about rather than a general complaint.

The carpet question

Surface shampooing does very little for odor that has soaked into the pad. If the previous resident had a pet, smoked, or the unit sat closed for a long time, the smell can be in the pad and sometimes in the subfloor.

That is a conversation with the building rather than a cleaning project. Professional extraction is the first step and replacement is the real one, and both are far easier to get before you move in than three weeks later. Raise it during the first walkthrough if you can, and in writing either way.

What not to do

• Do not mask it with plug-ins and sprays for the first two weeks, because that just delays finding the source until your things are in the apartment.
• Do not shampoo the carpet yourself before reporting it, since that can be read as accepting the condition.
• Do not paint over smoke residue, which is both not yours to do and ineffective without proper sealing.
• Do not skip photographing what you find. A dated photo of a stained carpet on move-in day is worth a great deal at move-out.

Use the empty window

Every item on this page is quick in an empty apartment and awkward in a furnished one. Cabinets are reachable, appliances can be pulled out, walls are clear, and there is nothing of yours to move or protect.

That window is exactly what move-in apartment cleaning is scheduled around, and if the smell needs walls, vents, and appliance interiors rather than surfaces, that is deep apartment cleaning.