But the drywall, riddled with years of smoke and other odors, soaked up the paint like a sponge.

But the drywall, riddled with years of smoke and other odors, soaked up the paint like a sponge.

Secondly, you can use the VA loan with the intent to occupy it, but then if you PCS, or deploy, and have to move out, no harm no foul.

I would get a hold of neighbors in the area and verify there are no odors issues with a third party.

All sounds good BUT....They clearly have not cleaned a thing in the last 8 years in the apartment, the place is disgusting (no foul smells but general filth), they have collected likely a full 8 years worth of magazines which are stacked throughout the kitchen, living room and bathroom along with miscellaneous newspapers, artifacts and other items.

If you miss out on a few deals because of it no harm, no foul.

Obviously we didn't try and charge them for paint and supplies, but when I did hours and hours of work for cat odor mitigation, I was not very pleased to charge them $0.00 for my work (of note: I ended up having to hire an odor mitigation company to fumigate the entire duplex).

Just recently within the past few months this year (2020) we noticed a weird odor, not knowing where it came from at first. 

Some of the methods that I have used in the past to get rid of odors including the smell of smoke are baking soda, vinegar, ozone generators, activated charcoal, steam cleaning, and even opening windows to air it out a bit.

I was upfront with them verbally that the home was not cleaned as required in the lease and that there is a lasting odor of smoke in the home as well as irreparable carpet damage in all 3 bedrooms.