I used to work in Air Filtration in another life, and we often had to work with smoke damaged properties and Apartment Buildings with odors...
In the car:
1) Replace cabin air filter
2) Rent a rug doctor and clean everything that is cloth.
3) Get an air sponge and leave it open in the car until it dries out.
In the home:
1) Wash whatever you can!
2) Large furniture is going to smell like smoke for a while. If you cannot afford steam cleaning, get a good upholstery cleaner and clean matresses, sofas, etc... This will get the layer of nic/tar/stuff off the outside of the furniture. Work as much baking soda as you can into the cushions, etc... Air the items out if you can by leaving them out on a breezy day. Spray the items with Odoban and clean.
3) Get an activated charcoal filter for your HVAC system.
Steam cleaners can get the odors out of carpet, etc... Make sure you tell the cleaners that you are trying to get rid of cigarette smoke and they will bring the proper cleaners. They will also do furniture.
If you're too strapped to afford steam cleaning, mix essential oils with baking soda. Spread liberally over carpet, leave for 4 hours and vacuum up. (You girls can have your fruity flowery smells too!)
For removing odors, you need activated charcoal. Activated charcoal has been processed to have a very porous surface with a large area. Most "odors" come from particles that are in the 1-5 micron range.
This is a view of activated charcoal
through an electron microscope, see the small pockets in there? Odor particles get trapped in those crevices and cannot escape. That's how activated charcoal works. Normal charcoal is not going to have this prepared surface area.
We had a demo box that we would use that was clear plexiglass with a fan/filter on one end and a cigarette holder/fan on the other end. We'd place a lit cig in the holder, and run the first fan to fill the box with smoke. Then we'd run the second fan so that the air got filtered by a charcoal filter... You could just watch the smoke go bye-bye. Then we'd pop the lid and ask people to smell it.
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As to Ozone generators, yes they can work to eliminate odors, but they are NOT safe. Ozone is a toxic gas!!!! Using one in a closed car is not a good idea.
How does Ozone work?? First and foremost it is used to keep biological contaminants from growing. Mold, mildew, etc... Will be killed by ozone or have it's growth stunted. If it's alive, Ozone will slow it's growth or kill it. The only other means by which Ozone could be said to work would be if the Ozone reacts with the chemical causing the smell, and that chemical reaction transforms the odor into another less stinky molecule.
Ozone can mask odors, but that's not really what we're talking about here...
Ozone can adversely affect indoor plants, and damage materials such as rubber, electrical wire coatings, and fabrics and art work containing susceptible dyes and pigments. The concentration of ozone would have to greatly exceed health standards to be effective in removing most indoor air contaminants. In the process of reacting with chemicals indoors, ozone can produce other chemicals that themselves can be irritating and corrosive.
Hope that helps!
