True stoners know that not everybody appreciates the unique and pungent smells that come out of a loud bag of chronic. Maybe you have roommates or neighbors who aren’t 420 friendly. Maybe you just want to improve your own air quality and stop smelling like weed all the time. No matter the specifics of your situation, stinky bud can be a big problem! If your cannabis is stinking up your house or dorm room, you may be wondering how to mask the smell from the rest of the house or avoid it altogether. Here are five tried-and-true ways to keep your home from smelling like weed.
Smoke outside or blow smoke out the window
It may seem like a pretty obvious answer, but the best way to keep weed from stinking up the house is to (you guessed it) avoid smoking it in the house. However, that isn’t always an option. While cannabis is legal for recreational use in DC, you’re not really supposed to be out in the open smoking it. In fact, that could warrant complaints from your neighbors, and in harsher situations, a run-in with the police or a fine. In this case, discretion is key. You can usually smoke outside on your own property so long as you’re not out there doing it in broad daylight while the neighbor kids play in their back yard.
If you don’t have a private balcony, garage, parked vehicle, or yard to escape to, your next best option is to smoke in the house and exhale through an open window. Try to avoid smoking mediums that burn continually, like joints or blunts. You can’t catch all the smoke in your lungs to blow out the window, so a lot of it will sit in the room and linger, ultimately stinking up your house. By sticking to bongs and bowls, you can inhale all of the smoke into your lungs and blow it straight out the window.
Mask the smell
If switching smoking mediums is out of the question, and you can’t seem to find the appropriate time to go outside, you can always cover the weed smell up. For one thing, you should always store cannabis in odor-proof glass jars to protect your weed from drying out while also keeping the smell in. Air fresheners like Febreeze or incense sticks work great for spot treating the odors. You can also run an essential oil diffuser to mask the smell. In fact, many cannabis aficionados swear by adding cannabis terpenes like pinene or limonene to essential oil diffusers to both cover the smell and promote aromatherapeutic benefits.
Sometimes all it takes is running a load of laundry or cooking something in the kitchen. A surefire way to mask the smell is by microwaving a bag of popcorn until it just starts to burn. Semi-burnt popcorn is still edible, but it’ll mask the smell entirely. You can also limit your smoke sessions to the bathroom. Running the shower and bathroom fan while you smoke can help dissipate odors quickly.
Last but not least, keeping the smell off of your skin and clothes can help the air quality in your home. You don’t have to jump in the shower every time you hit the bong or anything, but washing your hands always helps. Keeping a pack of gum handy helps with keeping the smell off of your breath. You can also use Febreeze to eliminate odors on your clothes.
Covering the smell is easy if you’re not smoking a lot. However, if you’re hotboxing your little apartment day in and day out, Febreeze just isn’t gonna cut it. If you’re smoking a lot, see number 5.
Use a homemade sploof or Smoke Buddy
An older trick for masking the smell comes in the form of a sploof. A sploof is an empty toilet paper or paper towel tube with a dryer sheet attached to the end. The idea is to smoke weed as you usually would, but exhale the smoke through the sploof tube. The result is smoke that smells like clean laundry instead of smoke that smells like your average smoke sesh.
A Smoke Buddy is a more refined version of a sploof. It is designed to act as a personal smoke filter so you can be discreet on the go. It’s made with hard plastic, and it’s usually good for about 300 hits before you’ll need to replace the filter. The dryer sheet used on a sploof will need to be replaced much more frequently.
Get a few houseplants or a carbon air filter
If you’ve tried the rest and you’re not completely satisfied masking the smell or not smoking in the house, you’re going to want to invest in a few things to improve ambient air quality. If you have lots of natural light, opt for a few house plants. House plants can naturally improve the air quality in your home, making it easier for weed smell to dissipate and disappear.
The key is keeping the air moving. Keep a window open when you smoke and run the ceiling fan. You can also use oscillating fans to help keep it moving. If you smoke a lot of weed in your home, you’ll want to bring out the big guns and invest in a carbon air filter. Carbon absorbs odors found in cannabis smoke and pushes out clean, purified air. It works wonders for dealing with a lot of smoke and scrubbing the air clean so that nothing in the house can absorb odors. Best of all, they seem to get cheaper and cheaper every year.
Vape or dab instead of smoking flower
Many smokers prefer to get high the old fashioned way, with weed and fire. That’s fine and well if the smell isn’t an issue, though it’s possible to achieve the same level of “high” using cleaner smoking methods, like vaping or switching to dabs. Many different vaporizers are available that can vaporize dried cannabis flowers, allowing you to get the full effects of smoking flower without the burning smell. Smoking concentrates like shatter, wax, live resin, or rosin (also known as dabs) can also promote the same, if not more potent, effects as dried cannabis flower without the smell.
Vaporization offers all the benefits of smoking actual weed while limiting the drawbacks, like odor and potential side effects. Vaporizers come in all shapes and sizes. Some are capable of vaporizing from actual flowers, while others vaporize concentrates like BHO. Some can do both, and others can do more. No matter which vaporizer you choose, vaporizers are convenient, discreet, flavorful, and flexible. They can provide the perfect flavors with low-temp decarboxylation that won’t damage any delicate terpenes from the flower, allowing you to enjoy the full spectrum of effects more efficiently than you could by using a torch or lighter. Best of all, vaporizers don’t produce smoke, which is the smelly factor most people are concerned with when it comes to smoking weed. They produce vapor, which is mostly odorless and dissipates in a room completely.
Dabbing concentrates can also offer all the benefits weed has to offer without the smell. Much like vapes, concentrate smoke dissipates and can’t be detected in a room after about 5 minutes. Low temp dabs that have intact terpenes (like SHO rosin or live resin) can even get you higher than flower alone since these forms of cannabis are highly concentrated. That being said, a little goes a long way. Save money, get higher, don’t stink: choose dabs.
FAQs
What are the best things to stop the smell of weed? ›
In the same way you might put baking soda in the fridge to soak up smells, activated charcoal and carbon filters absorb the smell of weed. Some inexpensive examples include SmellRid and the Hamilton Beach TrueAir. You can place these around the house or apartment, as close to the source as possible.
How long does it take for your house to stop smelling like weed? ›On average, it takes from a couple of hours to a couple of days to fully ventilate a room from cannabis. But this is so if you do not use auxiliary tools. And if you use a fan, open windows and spray air freshener, if you want to clean the room and remove the remnants of marijuana smoke in a few minutes.
Can I call the police on my neighbors for smoking weed? ›However, some cities are drafting ordinances that make marijuana smoke that wafts over to a neighbor's property a nuisance. If that is the case in your area, calling local law enforcement could lead to a citation against your neighbors.
What air freshener hides the smell of weed? ›Air Freshener
Air fresheners are a classic solution to eliminating the smell of cannabis. Mint scented air fresheners will typically work better than the others.
A dehumidifier with an air filter can work surprisingly quickly to eliminate most airborne odors in a room. If you smoke cannabis indoors frequently, it's undoubtedly worth the investment. If you keep it running continuously in your smoking room, it will work to keep the air clear round the clock.
How long does smoke smell last in house? ›Depending on your steps and diligence in combating the smoke particles, your odor removal timeline could range anywhere from two weeks to a month. But remain patient since your house fire is unique.
Why does the smell of weed make me feel sick? ›“The growing marijuana produces noxious gasses, and odor fumes that affect our health, causing dizziness/vertigo and nausea feelings,” Ron explains.
Does weed smell stay in an apartment? ›In any soft surface, yes. And in most apartments that almost everything. From furniture, drapes, carpets cannabis odors will linger although not to the same extent as tobacco.
How do hotels detect smoking in rooms? ›Most hotel rooms have sensors or these vape detectors, especially if the hotel has a no-smoking rule. Whether you smoke nicotine or marijuana, the sensor will detect the particles roaming in the air and alert the hotel management. Before going to a hotel, check whether there is a rule about smoking and vaping.
Is there an air purifier for smokers? ›Alen FLEX – is a great choice for combating both cigarette and second-hand smoke. The quality filtration technology, with a carbon filter that holds as much as 2lb+ of carbon, is just a testament to this option. Coway Airmega 400 – This is another air purifier that is a great choice for smokers.
How do you mask the smell of smoke when smoking? ›
Keeping a good supply of scented candles and strong incense to burn while you smoke is a good idea in masking the smell of the cigarettes. Incense is a particularly good option, especially if you already burn it regularly because it smells like smoke already.
Will growing weed make my whole house smell? ›When growing cannabis indoors it can seem like a losing battle when it comes to hiding the smell. Cannabis plants let off intensely pungent aromas when flowering, and these aromas can filter out and end up stinking up your entire building; in some cases it may even end up sticking up the block next to you too.
How bad does indoor weed smell? ›The strong odors produced by growing cannabis are often described as pungent, skunky, floral, fruity, or even “sewer-like.” Created by the plant's essential oils (terpenes), odors are strongest when the flower is budding. Some odors from cannabis farms have been detected more than a mile from their source.
Do air purifiers help with smoke smell? ›While many people know that an air purifier can help with allergens such as mold and pollens, the good news is that using an air purifier can help to remove smoke from the air as well. Not only can an air purifier help to remove smoke odors, but it can capture many of the harmful chemical components as well.
What kills the smell of smoke in a house? ›White vinegar cuts through odors naturally. Try wiping down furniture, washable walls, floors, etc. with white vinegar. Also, try placing several bowls of vinegar around the room with the smoke damage, leaving them there for several days.
How much does it cost to remove smoke smell from a house? ›How Much Does Smoke Remediation Cost? Typical costs for clean-up after a fire has occurred are between $3,000 and $26,000. Smoke remediation itself can cost between $200 to $1,000 depending on how much furniture, clothing and carpet requires deodorizing.
Can you smell weed in a closet? ›Yes, it will smell exactly like you smoked weed in your closet with the vent closed and a towel under the door. It's crazy how if you contain the smell of weed in a small area it will smell twice as bad.
Can you smoke without leaving a smell? ›Close interior air vents
So when smoke is present indoors, it can enter the duct system and travel from room to room. By closing the vent in the specific room where you are smoking, you will isolate any odor to that room. Most vents have a small sliding mechanism, which allows you to easily open and close the vent.
When you smoke indoors, your second-hand smoke lingers in the air. You can't see or smell it, but it's there. Every time you smoke, you breathe out second-hand smoke. The particles are so small 85% of them are invisible and odourless.
How do you not smell like smoke when you live with a smoker? ›Run an air purifier to neutralize odors and keep the air fresh and clean. If smoking must be done inside every now and again, be sure to use a smoke-trapping product, like the Holmes® Smoke Grabber® Ashtray, to limit the smoke in the air. You can also spray an air freshener to cover up odors.