Getting ciagarette smell out of tent

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Edit: lifted from a thread on the same subject years ago.

A co-worker borrowed my JanSport Yellowstone done tent in 1983 and his burnout daughter slept (and smoked) in it. He was really apologetic and had a sent off to a cleaning service, one that specialized in outdoor gear, but it shrunk slightly. The odor was gone, and I could set it up, but all the poles and zippers were a bother ever after because they were all a little tight.

If you do wash any coated fabrics DON'T use a laundry detergent. They can quickly delaminate the sil or urethane right off the nylon. It looks like skin peeling off a bad sunburn afterwards. Try the mildest soap you can.

Airing things out and using water only has not been successful for me on other nylon items off of eBay. Now I read the listing very carefully, ask questions beforehand, and would insist on a return for undisclosed smoke damage.

Take it outside and spray it down with a hose, use some light soap too.

it may not have been smoked "in". i bought a very nice Simpson voltmeter off ebay from a fellow that rebuilds them (the meter works great) but apparently he smokes like a locomotive. the stench was so bad i put the thing in storage for 3 years just to keep it out of my house.

perhaps your smell is just from the tent and box being near real smokers.
1. – go the mirazyme treatment. no bad effects on my tents of gear with it so far (several years now)
2. – lend it to a teenage boy. it will reek so badly afterwards, that cigarette smell will be a fond memory.
3. – crawl in there with a honk'n torp and blaze away. by the time you're done, it will smell marginally better … and you won't care.

cheers,
v.

I love that Peter still uses the word torp. You already have the tent, try cleaning it. You'll have to handle it to send back or whatever your plans are since you already have another gear swap post looking for this tents' replacement.

Yeah, the seller says hes not sure how it happened as it didnt smell that way when he mailed it. He has agreed to just refund the money, hence my post in the gear swap.

I really liked the tent and would have tried to make it work but the seller didnt want o put out anymore money to try and make it happen especially if the results werent guaranteed.

And no, I doubt it was smoked "in" but definitely stored in a smoking environment.

Wash it in your bathtub with one of the special soaps for tents, then apply a DWR treatments. Set it up in your back yard for a week. You should be good to go.

I bought a Juggs radar gun on ebay, the case and foam liner stunk to high heaven of cigarrette smoke. I aired it out. It still had a slight smell 3 yrs later when I sold it.

People that smoke cant smell, they dont know how bad their stuff stinks. If you smoke in a house or car, everything smell like an ashtray. Everything.

If it was only stored rolled up in a smoking area I bet it would air out pretty good as most of the odor and any residue is on the outside. If its been smoked in maybe a lot harder to get the smell out

Cigarette, cigar, or pretty much any smoke smell will go away if set up in a ventilated area for a while.

Also, you can adjust to the smell after a while if you need to use it right away.

Wash it, air it out.

If it still smells, you could put an ozone generator in it for a short time.
Nothing better, but ozone will degrade some materials.

I have suffered a similar fate with a guitar i purchased and did some research into this to try and remove the smell….the issue is that cigarette smoke when it settles on items leaves behind a oily waxy tar substance….this is what you need to remove to get rid of the smell….many recommendations will just try and mask the smell..eg Febreeze etc…if the tent has a bad smoke smell then i think that any process to remove the tar substance will degrade the waterproofing on the tent…i would send it back….note it took 10 goes of using a steamer to get rid of the smoke smell on the guitar case. Hope you resolve you problem.

Those of us that grew up before the smoking bans remember a time when everything smelled of cigarettes.

You ate in restaurants in a cloud of smoke.
Most businesses had ash trays.
Even movie theaters and airplanes had ash trays attached to the seats.

We got used to it. The smell is harmless, unlike the smoke.

The tar does break down and the smell goes away after a while.

Setting up the tent for few days should get rid of most of the smell.
Washing with mild soap can help somewhat.

I had a tent that smelled of campfire smoke after a group of revelers built a fire a good distance from my tent after I went to sleep.

My tent happened to be on the downwind side of the fire and the wood they burned was wet and very smoky.

The smell either went away after a few days on the trail, or maybe I just got used to it.

It was a very minor annoyance. There are many things out there that will annoy you more than a smoke smell in your tent.

Meh..not that big of a problem especially if you got a good deal off of ebay.
Sunshine and a good hosing off will do wonders.
If not, do what I do and crawl in there with a double 18 year old MaCallan and nice aged Arturo Fuente or Padron and your tent will smell perfect in no time.
DO NOT wash it down with any commercial cleaners as it will compromise the performance of the tent fabrics.
And above all please ignore Peter's number 2 recommendation, as the previous owner of two teenage boys I can honestly tell you that once they've spent a night in your tent you won't want it back.