Financial Benefits of Going Smoke-Free
Protect Your Investment!
Going smoke-free saves you money—and helps save your building. Here are some interesting facts:
- Tobacco smoke leaves a sticky residue on walls, curtains, blinds, appliances, and ceilings. The odor often stays in carpets, curtains, and walls. Dropped ashes may result in damage to tiles, carpets, countertops, and bathtubs.
- When a smoking tenant moves out, costly cleaning and repairs are often necessary to prepare the unit for a new tenant.
Removing brown-yellow stains from walls, cabinets, blinds, and fixtures. - Eliminating smoke odor from drapes, carpets, and walls through cleaning or removal.
Repairing or replacing damaged, burned, or singed carpet, tiles, drapes, countertops, and bathtubs.
Fire Risks
Cigarettes are the leading cause of fires in buildings as well as the number one cause of fires that result in death. In 2008, smoking-material fires caused:
- 680 deaths
- 1,520 injuries
- $737 million in direct property damage
Resale Value
Research suggests that smoke-free apartment buildings may have increased resale value, should you ever decide to sell your building. Agents who have assisted people selling or shopping homes agree: as the number of public places in which a person can smoke has shrunk, so has the number of home buyers who are even willing to consider a house with smoking in its past.
Dangers of Secondhand Smoke
There Is No Safe Level Of Exposure
According to the U.S. Surgeon General (2010), any level of exposure to secondhand smoke is dangerous. There are over 7,000 identifiable chemicals in secondhand smoke, and at least 69 of these chemicals cause cancer.
- Secondhand smoke causes an estimated 46,000 premature deaths from heart disease & 3,400 lung cancer deaths in the United States among non-smokers annually.
- According to the U.S. Surgeon General (2014), exposure to secondhand smoke increases risk for heart attack and strokes, even in non-smokers by 50%.
- Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk of:
- Sudden infant death syndrome
- Ear infections
- Asthma
- More frequent & severe asthma attacks
- Colds, pneumonia, bronchitis
- Causes or exacerbates respiratory tract infections, such as pneumonia and bronchitis, especially in infants, children and older persons.
Stopping Secondhand Smoke
The Only Way To Stop Secondhand Smoke Is To Go Smoke-Free
Secondhand smoke cannot be controlled by ventilation, air purifiers, or the separation of smokers from non-smokers. In multi-unit housing, up to 60% of the air in individual apartments is shared with air from other units and common areas. The only solution to protect residents from secondhand smoke is to make the building 100% smoke-free.
Dangers of Thirdhand Smoke
What Is Thirdhand Smoke?
- The residual tobacco toxins that remain after the cigarette is extinguished.
- Is what you smell when a smoker gets in an elevator after smoking or entering a room where someone has smoked.
- Among the substances in thirdhand smoke are hydrogen cyanide, used in chemical weapons; butane, used in lighter fluid; toluene, found in paint thinners; arsenic; lead; and carbon monoxide.
Thirdhand Smoke In Housing
- After long-term exposure, removing these thirdhand smoke from surfaces such as a carpet is nearly impossible. A study done in 2010 found that thirdhand smoke remained in a home for two months after smokers moved out.
- In buildings where substantial smoking has occurred, replacing furnishings, carpets, and wallboards can significantly reduce exposures.
- Children and infants are especially susceptible to thirdhand smoke because they breathe near, crawl, play on, touch and mouth contaminated surfaces.A 100% smoke-free environment is the most effective way to eliminate the presence of tobacco.
Read next: Smoke-Free Housing Protections in Hawai‘i