A rental home’s interior could be greatly damaged by cigarette smoke. This is the reason why most Hewitt property owners include a clause in their lease documents that stipulate a ban on smoking inside or anywhere on the rental home property.
The question then arises: What about vaping? There has been a sharp increase in the use of e-cigarettes in the past few years. Many people use them as a substitute for smoking tobacco. Many people view vaping as a safe recreational activity that’s generally considered to be less harmful to a person’s health than smoking. This is a reason why vaping is often used as a means to quit the smoking habit.
Despite the hype, vaping is not as harmless as many people think it is. The e-cigarettes and other vaping devices produce clouds of vapor that leave a filmy residue on anything they touch. Your walls, floors, and furniture could have this residue stuck to them. Think about it: anywhere that air can travel, vapor can, too. It could reach every part of the inside of your home. This includes inside air vents and ductwork, where problems could go unnoticed for long periods of time.
The explanation why vapor causes so much trouble is because it’s not water, but glycerin. It may still be clear but it does not evaporate into the air. In fact, it is somewhat oily. The emissions from an e-cigarette are more similar to aerosol gas than water vapor. It holds particles that are formed out of chemicals, flavoring, and preservatives. These particles stick to whatever it comes in contact with. Over time, these particles combine into a thick film that is both difficult and expensive to get rid of.
When the film builds up on hard surfaces like windows or mirrors, they can be wiped down relatively easily. However, when they stick to other areas such as carpets, painted surfaces, and ductwork, they can’t be simply wiped clean. It’s very expensive and time-consuming to clean the filmy residue that vaping leaves on surfaces like these. On top of that, some items may be permanently damaged because of it.
For example, you can’t wash away the vapor particles from fabrics and carpets, so they may need to be professionally cleaned more than once a year. Painted walls are also another challenge because the paint is porous and the vapor particles could get inside every pore. And this problem only escalates with the texture of your walls. The more textured they are, the more rapidly the sticky film gets into it. You would need to scrub off the film frequently, but the paint could be damaged during the process.
With so much potential to damage the interiors of your Hewitt rental home, it makes a lot of sense to prohibit the use of e-cigarettes along with other forms of smoking. At Real Property Management Talent, we perform regular property evaluations to check for signs of vaping inside your rental homes. Our expert property managers observe your properties closely, ensuring better lease compliance and keeping the value of your investment safe. If you want to know more, contact us online or call us at 254-401-0400.
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