Smoker's Lament
Advice - Spike Sez offers no-nonsense, practical advice for the lovelorn, lost, and stupid. If you feel you fit into one of these categories and have a related question, submit it to spike@onlineoffbeat.com, and if he feels like it Spike may respond.
Spike is NOT a licensed therapist and has NO training whatsoever in psychology or human behavior, but as he frequently says, “the fucking President has no qualifications for his job either, and look how well he’s doing.” Spike Sez is not affiliated with Spike TV, Spike Lee, or anyone else purporting to be named Spike.
Dear Spike — I recently put my house of 10 years on the market. One of the things that my broker noted when she first came to meet with me was that it smelled like smoke and that that might be an issue for some buyers. I know that non-smokers can be very sensitive to smoke, so before every showing I’ve made an extra effort to ensure that the smoke smell is minimal.
Well, this morning I received an offer on my house...with a contingency. The buyers want me to have the house professionally cleaned at my expense until it meets with their approval in terms of the smoke smell being removed. They also want me to agree not to smoke in the house after the cleaning.
I’m not sure what to do. Part of me is really offended by their request. It’s not like I’m living in some dark, one room hovel with overflowing ashtrays on every surface and nicotine-stained walls. The house is a bright, airy bungalow with lots of windows. I also keep it near-immaculate clean at all times, steam clean the carpets and furniture every 6 months, and repaint every 3 years. At the same time, the housing market is so bad right now that I’m afraid to pass up an opportunity to sell.
I get that some people just don’t like the smell of smoke, in the same way that I get turned off by the smells of old food or dirty laundry when I go into a house, but I also know that 90% of the smoke smell is going to leave with me and the other 10% will disappear as soon as they repaint, which I’m sure the new owners would do anyway.
Given that you’re a smoker, what would you do in my situation?
— Smokin’ Joe, Atlanta, Georgia
Dear Smokin’ — What would Spike do in your situation? He would ask his broker to arrange a meeting with the prospective buyers, show up with a lit cigarette dangling from each corner of his mouth, and tell them to go fuck themselves. Then again Spike is fabulously wealthy from writing this column and could afford to let his house rot into the ground to make a point.
You know, Spike tries to be tolerant of other people. He really does, as hard as that is most of the time. But the one thing he can’t tolerate is intolerance, and these people are being intolerant in the worst kind of way. Essentially they’re trying to punish you for something they find offensive. It’s like they’re saying, “You wanted to smoke in this house? Great, now you’re going to pay for it.”
Suppose you were a Buddhist and they were conservative Christians. Would it be all right for them to ask you to pay for an exorcist to come to the house to get rid of your non-Christian-God spirits before they moved in? No. Suppose you were grossly overweight. Would it be okay for them to ask you to lose 300 lbs first because the idea of living in a fat person’s house grosses them out? No...although it would certainly be understandable.
Perhaps the analogies aren’t perfect, but you get the point. Do they have a right to live in a house that doesn’t smell like smoke? Yes, of course. But you also have a right to smoke in the house that you currently own and they don’t have a right to try to punish you for it.
In Spike’s opinion, you’re no more responsible for de-smoking the house than you would be for painting the walls or remodeling the bathroom to suit their tastes. While it’s your house you can do whatever the hell you want in it. When it’s theirs they can do the same. So long as you’re honest about the condition of the house, you’ve met your responsibility.
Now it may seem as though you have no choice, that they have all the power because you want to sell your home and they have the money to buy it. But the reality is that you also have power because you have a house they want to buy, and you’re under no obligation to sell it to them. Spike understands your concern that if you turn them down you might miss out on your only chance to sell your house for a while, but you really shouldn’t negotiate something as large and important as the sale of a house from a position of fear.
If you want to accommodate them to some level, fine. But you need to limit your exposure. The way you described the contingency everything is at their discretion. That’s not a good thing, especially with intolerant assholes. They could keep asking you to bring in professional cleaners every month for the next 2 years claiming they can still smell the smoke. You need to agree to a limit. Maybe you agree to bring is a professional cleaning service once after you move out. Or maybe you agree to replace the carpets. Those would both be reasonable accommodations. Beyond that you’re opening yourself up for trouble and rewarding them for being dicks.
Best of luck, Smokin’. Perhaps in your next house you should do what Spike did and just have everything shrink-wrapped in heavy plastic. Sure the couch sticks to your thighs on a hot day and makes embarrassing farting noises when company comes over, but when it’s time to clean you just splash some laundry detergent around and hose it all down and the whole place smells as fresh as a Tahitian waterfall.
So ciao for now,
Spike
DISCLAIMER: Spike and Online OffBeat take no responsibility whatsoever for advice given in Spike Sez. Submit questions at your own risk to spike@onlineoffbeat.com. If no questions are submitted, Spike will make them up.
