Every one of us has walked into a person’s house that has been a smoker. You can tell the instant you walk in the door. The smell permeates everything around it. The furniture, the linens, the clothes they wear. It even turns the walls and ceilings yellow and the smell is virtually impossible to remove. Every porous surface is going to hold in that tobacco residue for years.
Now, over the past several years, there has been a slow but steady cultural shift away from traditional cigarettes towards e-cigarettes. E-cigarettes are known as “Vaping” because no tobacco is being burned. A device quickly heats up the chemical-filled liquid for the smoker, and they inhale what is essentially water vapor. With chemicals, of course.
We aren’t here to talk about the ethical implications of Vaping and youth, although that is a huge topic. What we do want to discuss is “Can You Vape In A Non-Smoking Apartment?” And should the landlord allow it?
This is a huge question, and the legality of the matter is still being determined nationwide. Let’s look at some of the things that characterize this issue so you can make the decision that is best for your apartment complex.
Minimal Damage With Vaping
Again, we aren’t here to be anyone’s mother. We realize that vices are a part of life and different people have different vices. Tobacco use has been popular since the birth of the U.S., and regardless of the health risks, over 15% of adults in the U.S. still smoke today, and the percentage that vape is up over 4%.
If you own an apartment complex or have multiple rental units, chances are you have tenants that smoke. And if your complex is older than 10 or 15 years, chances are you have had multiple tenants that have smoked inside their apartments for years. It was commonplace back then and more culturally accepted, but that didn’t mean it didn’t do damage.
For a landlord, there is little worse than going into an apartment after someone has left and had to undertake the monumental effort it takes to make that apartment ready to rent again to someone new. In some cases, it is virtually impossible unless you take the walls out to the studs and put new ones back up again. Literally, it can get that bad. We have seen situations where the nicotine had been caked onto the walls so thick you could literally drag your finger through it on the wall and it would come away yellow.
There is no amount of cleaning that will take that smell away. And regardless if a person is a smoker or a non-smoker, nobody wants to move into an apartment that has been smoked in previously. It smells, it stinks, and it feels nasty. That’s just the way it is.
However, we know that people aren’t just going to quit their vices no matter if it stinks or is bad for them, their health, or the apartment they are living in. That’s just the way people are, so you as the landlord must figure out how you are going to handle it. How can you work within the sphere of people’s behavior to protect your own property the best you can?
Without going into the damage that Vaping does to the human body, let’s look at what it does to your apartment.
With traditional cigarettes, the tar that is leftover from smoking does two things. The first thing it does is create a hazard for other people, called second-hand smoke. The amount of chemicals still left in the air after someone has been smoking in a room, or even smoking outside, is enough to do damage to a human body. Just like the tar is coating the walls and furniture in your house, it is doing the same thing to those who breathe in the second-hand smoke as well.
The second thing traditional cigarettes do is coat all surfaces with that leftover tar. Down to the microscopic level, these particles are adhering to any porous surface. Regardless of whether you think your walls are smooth or not, if you look at it closely enough, you will see that they are actually bumps, grooves, and tiny holes all over it. These particles of tar adhere to these bumps and grooves and build up in the holes, creating the ongoing smell you get with people who smoke inside the apartment.
With Vaping, the situation is quite different.
Most users of Vaping believe that there is no residue whatsoever that is leftover after they vape, even if they do it quite a bit. This is not quite accurate, as there are oils and chemicals that are being burned inside the device that is going into the air and adhering to things, including other people’s lungs.
However, the impact of Vaping is MUCH less than traditional cigarettes.
Vaping has exponentially less chemicals that can be transmitted via second-hand smoke. This means that if a person IS going to smoke, and smoke around other people, it is the lesser of two evils. The potential damage to friends and family due to your smoking habit is going to be reduced considerably.
As for the walls and appliances and everything else in the apartment, vaping is also going to be much easier on them as well. While studies show that there IS a residue that can form on surfaces, it is exponentially less damaging and much easier to just wipe off than with traditional cigarettes.
Cigarette Waste Outside The Apartment Building
If you don’t have cigarette receptacles, ashtrays, buckets or something similar outside your building, chances are the ground is littered with cigarette butts. The buckets themselves are ugly and smell terrible and have to be emptied like kitty litter every few weeks. They are an eyesore, and after a while, people start using them as their personal trash cans than what they are intended for.
Most landlords would like to remove all of these things from their complex for good. And while that sounds like a dream come true, it is never going to happen. Again, people like to smoke, it’s just the facts. So, the landlord has to ask themselves which they would rather prefer: Cigarettes or Vaping?
Vaping Laws
The laws regulating vaping are changing every day. Some states, such as California, are putting full bans on them in public places and public housing establishments just the same as they do for cigarettes. Other states, such as Minnesota take a different view. They seem to see the issue as something that can’t be legislated away, and view that vaping doesn’t violate their Clean Air Act. So, if they have to choose between allowing one of the two vices, they choose the one that causes less damage to other people and property.
Currently, in Minnesota, you can smoke inside in any place that allows it. This encourages people to stop smoking traditional cigarettes and move to vaping. Whether this is a long-term solution ethically is not for us to decide today, it is just a different tact that is taken. But it is a tact that landlords should consider when determining their vaping policies. And in most states and cities, the landlord is the ultimate decider if their tenants can vape inside their apartment or not.
If You Had To Choose…
We all know that Vaping, just like smoking is going to happen. The question is, as a landlord, if it is going to happen anyways, which one would you prefer?
As a landlord considering their property, the answer to that question is most definitely: Vaping. It causes less damage to the apartment, saving time and money when you go to clean an apartment for the next tenant. It also puts less harmful chemicals into the air that other people potentially could breathe in. And it doesn’t put a thick residue on the walls that smell horrible.
Now, what if you don’t really have a policy one way or another in your lease as to whether or not you can vape in the apartment. What then?
Well, we all know how many times there have been calls and complaining about smoke permeating the units above and below it as people are smoking inside an apartment they shouldn’t be. No security deposit on earth is big enough to mitigate the damage made from smoking inside.
Vaping is also viewed as being discreet. Because the output of the e-cigarette is essentially water vapor, the smell doesn’t stick around in the air like cigarette smoke does. This allows for people to be much less assuming when they are vaping.
Let’s be honest, tenants are going to vape inside your apartment whether you want them to or not. And it is going to be hard to prove that they are or have been. Which should make you pause. If you can’t even tell someone has been vaping, and the apartment smells clean, then isn’t that a preferable alternative than having someone clandestinely smoking cigarettes inside?
You may want to consider allowing vaping in the apartments outright. The tenant doesn’t have to hide anything, they can be open about it in their apartment and on their balconies, and it is less harmful to other people. It also encourages them to NOT smoke traditional cigarettes. And while again, we are not trying to be someone’s mother, we can also see the benefits of one over the other, especially where managing your apartments and mitigating potential damage is concerned.
Now, if you have tenants that are being obnoxious with their vaping that is causing annoyance and distress to other tenants, then that is something that you are going to have to handle, just like any other conflict between tenants.
While we do not endorse anyone to Vape, we believe though that allowing vaping inside your apartment has some distinct advantages as you are operating your properties as a businessperson.
It leaves minimal residue on surfaces, so it saves you MONEY. This means when you need to clean the apartment, you can do so quickly, cheaply, and effectively. The money saved just with this alone is immeasurable.
It is safer for the people around the person Vaping. The amount of harmful chemicals and nicotine that go through the air with vaping is exponentially less than with that of cigarettes.
And it makes your apartment complex look cleaner. You can reduce or eliminate completely the need for those cigarette buckets outside of each building which are smelly eyesores. This will help attract better, high-quality tenants going forward and you and your maintenance guys will have less cleaning up of cigarette butts on the ground outside.
While there are significant risks to any smoking, even vaping, as a landlord, you need to make the best decision for your business when deciding your policy on allowing vaping inside your apartments. We all realize the health risks involved but considering what an Open-Vaping policy could save you, and improve the environment for all the tenants at the complex, may be worth considering.
