Dealing with Tenants that Smoke...

[Joshua Nackenson]

I have been renting out a single family house since July and the tenants have been low maintenance, but I just did a quick inspection of the property and the garage had lots of incense all around in an attempt to remove a strong smell of cigarettes.

Now you might think -- it's the garage, who cares? The garage is semi-finished except the floors and has it's own separate AC in a mini split, the walls are painted, garage door is insulated...

The lease doesn't explicitly say anything about smoking, just generic things about the security deposit being used against damages to the property.

The options on how to proceed:

a) do nothing. these are good tenants, doing nothing wrong. if the place reeks of smoke and they don't get the smell out when they leave, then part of their security deposit can go towards that. 

b) kindly let them know that they are doing nothing wrong, just that they are responsible for any damages to the property so if they move out and the place reeks of smoke than they will be responsible for the costs of removing the odor 

Curious how you all would proceed.

Thanks!