Example: buying a Cherry Creek North condo from a longtime smoker

The situation

Illustrative example. Not a real job or customer.

A buyer purchases a two-bedroom condo in a mid-rise building a few blocks from the shopping district. The unit was shown vacant, with fresh paint in the living room and windows cracked open. The seller's paperwork did not mention smoking. The first evening after closing, with the windows shut and the heat on, the unit smells strongly of stale cigarettes, worst in the second bedroom and the coat closet.

1. Before unpacking anything, the buyer photographs every room, pulls the furnace filter and finds it tan and tacky, and wipes a ceiling corner in each room with a white cloth.
2. The buyer's first instinct is to have the painter, already scheduled, repaint the whole unit the following week. A friend who renovated a smoker's house suggests waiting.
3. The buyer contacts the building manager to learn the contractor rules: insurance certificate naming the association, elevator reservations and weekday work hours.
4. Two odor providers visit. One proposes a single ozone treatment; the other proposes cleaning ceilings, walls, closets and cabinet interiors, coordinating duct cleaning for the unit's air handler, then a gentler airborne treatment that does not affect neighbors.
5. The buyer chooses the cleaning-first scope, removes the carpet and pad in the second bedroom, and pushes the painter back two weeks.
6. After cleaning and the airborne step, the unit is closed up overnight with the system running. The living room and kitchen pass. The second bedroom still has a faint odor from the closet shelving.
7. The closet shelving is replaced, the bedroom is primed with a shellac-based primer, and the painter finishes the unit.

The buyer moves in about three weeks later than planned. The smell does not return on the first cold snap, and the buyer keeps the photos, wipe cloths and scopes in case questions about disclosure come up later.