"Walter R." wrote in message

A semi-homeless person in San Diego would to know how to get rid of smoke
odors in a house that survived the firestorm. Several "disaster restorers"

So sorry to hear of this but happy for you that your home seems to have
survived.

The houses around us burned to the ground and contribute to the smoky
odor. There is a very fine layer of soot and ash in the attic and garage.
The rest of the house merely reeks of burned stuff.

My Mom's way to make money when we were kids was to buy a house, fix it,
then sell it for the profits and move on. Similar to the house shows on
'flipping' only we lived in the house. One of them (South Carolina) was
similar in that the house next door and the surrounding woods had burned
down. It wasnt the level of smoke and soot you probably have, but I'll list
what I recall of the process. Yes, we got the smell out.

1. Wash everything you can get at with a good wall washing solution. TSP
is what I see the others mention. If you have any unpainted wood, use
murphy's soap solution on those parts. (Dont use murphys soap on drywall,
but it works fine on any wood that hasnt been painted or the floors if
wood).

2. Rip out all interior carpets and any undercarpet cushionings. You'll
never really get the smell out of them though you can 'mask it' for short
times with various cleaners. If you have any exterior 'carpet' such as on
an enclosed porch, this may be 'cleanable' if it's a type you can lift up
and take to the back yard then hose down. That stuff that sorta looks like
'astro-turf' can be cleaned and reused. Be sure if doing that to use a
strong murphy soap cleaning solution and a scrub brush, and do *both sides*.
It slightly damaged the color but not enough to be a problem. Mostly it was
a hassle getting all the soap back out but you have to keep at it to get it
all out or you'll have slippery soap on your feet if you walk on it later
and it's wet. We did not have a pressure washer but if we had, it would
have been useful for that exterior carpet.

3. You may want to contract out cleaning the attic? Until you get that
layer of soot out, you will be smelling it. My Mom has a battery operated
hand vacumn unit we used up there in series to et as much as we could. We
also replaced the insulation (fiberglass rolls are easy). Its not fun doing
this in summer. Watch carefully for heat prostration and don't stay up
there more than 30 mins. Fortunately the vacumn cleaner thing would fill in
about 15 so we had to come down and empty it anyways. We'd recharge it and
wait for it to cool down then take another stint. Getting to the eaves was
my job as I was small enough (yet old enough to be safely able to do such).
Once we took out the insulation, we had an electrican come up and look over
all the wiring to mae sure nothing had soot in there that wouldlater cause
problems. He cleaned a few parts but it was mostly ok. If i recall
correctly, the ceiling boxes that had fans underneath were the trouble spots
and all else was ok? Soot had gotten inside them in a fine layer. Possibly
as an after effect as we had been runnig them? Apologies but I was about 11
years old and thats my best recollection on that part.

4. Some of the house had that 70's style flocked wallpaper. That cant be
fixed without destroying the stuff. We removed it and put up new stuff.
Also, we found the vinyl wallpaper in one bathroom had to be replaced. We
thought it would be ok after cleaning but the smell came back (reclesned
twice before we realized it wasnt going to go away). This may have had to
do with that specific brand and perhaps it was a bit more 'pourous' than
others? If you have any like that, try cleaning it and see if it works but
be prepared to have to replace it. (do not cover with another layer, the
smell would come back).

5. No matter what you do, you will have aroma seeping in from outside for a
year though it will go down alot after 6 months. This can't be fixed. We
wnt through the burned lot nex to the house and removed what we could do
reasonably easily then put in tons of little pine seedlings. It may have
helped, or it may have just been 'time'.

Will washing the walls help? I am afraid that the odor will return after a
few days or weeks. Can anyone offer some suggestions for the permanent
elimination of this stink? Some people swear by ozone generators, others
say that they are dangerous and ineffective.

You'll probably want to seal the walls with Kilz or a similar primer after
washing, then repaint. In that particular house, the old paint was oil
based so we used a primer for tht, then used oil based paint over it. On
ozone generators, sorry. I know nothing of them other than what the people
here say (dangerous and not very effective). Of course, since none of our
furniture was in there, we didnt have to deal with upholstery issues and
beds (seems to me, you will have to replace those things too but see if
another has any ideas?)

It's possible the contractor planned something like what I've listed but I'd
check really carefully to find out exactly what they planned before going
with them. Sad to say but I can see alot of fly-by-night guys trying to mae
a profit at homeowners expense out there, with ineffective shortcut methods.
I'd want to know exactly how long they had been in business doing that
particular type of job (not just general contracting made to look like this
type).

Good luck Walter and hope this helps.