How to handle tenants who smoked in your rental

[Corey Conklin]

I just had a tenant move out recently. While I was doing a showing to a few new prospective tenants while the old tenants were still living in the house, everyone (including myself) had smelled cigarette smoke in the house. I had confronted the tenant and she denied there was smoking in the house. Fast forward to them moving out and turning the property back over, there is a CLEAR smell of smoke in the house. I had multiple people walk in the house and could smell it.

My question is how do you prove smoke damage? They only lived in the house for 6 months so there wasn't enough to show damage to walls or any other fixtures. It wasn't something I could take a picture of like you would a broken blind or hole in the wall.

I had to spend a good bit of money on repainting the house, cleaning, etc. to remediate the smell. The issue is how do you document a smell? The old tenant won't admit to smoking and I'm trying to find ways moving forward to have more documentation on smoke damage. Any help is appreciated!