It’s time to sell your home and move on to better things. You’ve got everything ready; the house is cleaned up for showing, you’re pre-approved for a loan on a bigger one, and you’re excited. But there’s one thing you forgot: you’ve been smoking in your home for years now. Smoking inside of a home can drop its value by as much as 29%, which means you’re losing nearly a third of your home’s worth to your destructive habit.
Smoking inside a home can wreak havoc on the home’s furnace and ventilation system, carpeting, upholstery, and even hard surfaces. Not to mention, the air quality inside a smoker’s home is abysmal, and the scent can linger for years if it isn’t cleaned properly. Let’s take a closer look at what lighting up inside your home is doing to your property value.
Cigarette Smoke
The smoke from a cigarette contains nearly 7,000 chemicals. Among these are formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, nicotine, and heavy metals. After the smoke has passed through your lungs, you blow it into the air around you, where it stays…for hours.
If you’re continuously smoking inside a house, the air is entirely polluted. The smoke gets blown around by the ventilation system and your fans, ending up in every room, every corner, every crevice. There’s no way around it; the smoke from your cigarettes infects your entire house.
You’ve probably noticed the yellowish-brown film on your base trim and walls by now. This is the cigarette smoke settling on hard surfaces. That yellowish-brown film? That’s what you’re breathing in every time you smoke. This film is hard to clean, even harder to deodorize, and sometimes doesn’t come off and requires a re-painting.
You can count this as one of the many costs for the new homeowner. Disinfecting, cleaning, and painting over cigarette smoke-polluted walls can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars in the end.
Health Concerns
The next homeowner to live in your house could be exposed to potential health hazards from cigarette smoke. Once you’ve smoked in a home long enough, it can take years for all of the chemicals and toxins to dissipate, even after frequent cleaning.
You’re essentially sacrificing up to a third of your home’s value by continuing to smoke inside of it. You might find it’s even more difficult to find buyers as well, considering you’ve damaged the home’s interior significantly and the repair costs increase the liability of the sale and the amount of work the new homeowner will have to do.
Furnace and Ventilation
Just as cigarette smoke builds up on walls, fabrics, and carpeting, it also builds up inside the furnace and ventilation system. This can make the air quality of a home drop dramatically, and the furnace may need to be replaced entirely if the build-up is bad enough.
Removing cigarettes from your lifestyle with tobacco alternatives can be one of the best decisions you ever make for the sake of your health and your financial future. Not only will you save money on the cost of cigarettes, but you’ll also be able to prevent the loss of critical value from your home. You want the best price you can fetch when you sell your home, and smoking inside is not helping you achieve that goal.
Your Health
Aside from damaging your home, smoking is putting your health at risk. This is no secret, but it seems to be a fact that smokers choose to ignore. Each time you smoke, your risk of cancer, lung disease, and dozens of other ailments increases. How can you enjoy your new home if you’re suffering from disease? Smoking can be fatal as well, claiming nearly half a million lives on an annual basis. You certainly can’t enjoy a new home from six feet under!
Your finances are likely suffering from the habit as well, limiting your home-buying options. Imagine spending $3-400 per month on cigarettes; dropping the habit can increase your buying power and free up some of your income for home repairs and improvements in the new place.
Ditching the habit is more than just a decision for the sake of your home; it’s a decision for the sake of your health, happiness, financial security, and the value of your personal property. Why put everything at risk for a habit that does nothing but destroy everything it comes in contact with?
Conclusion
Giving up cigarettes is a great decision, and it can help prevent your home from losing up to a third of its value. Imagine having a $150,000 home and losing $43,000 of it to smoking! That’s a lot of money for a habit that is actively destroying your health and your financial future. With alternatives like tobacco-free dips and plenty of resources available, quitting has never been easier. Why wait?
