Hallway Tobacco Smoke Can Kill an Apartment Sale. Have Sellers Recourse?

July 4, 2014 — Few things are more of a turnoff to a potential buyer than bad smells in an apartment: pet odors, cooking odors, smoking odors. Yet even the most fastidious co-op or condo owners can find themselves stymied by smells coming in from other apartments — and as one troubled soul writes to Ronda Kaysen in The New York Times' "Ask Real Estate" section, what can one do about the smoker next-door, whose tobacco odor lingers in the hallway outside his door? "We ... have been told by our broker that this cigarette smell can be a deal breaker for potential buyers," the seller says. See what an etiquette expert and a real-estate professional advise. And, yes, cookies figure into it.