Stinky Apartment! 2nd hand smoke! 1st hand vacancy loss!

One of my Team Members NEEDS HELP! One of our 2BR/1BA upstairs apartment homes has been vacant since September of last year. The man who lives downstairs is a chain smoker and nothing we have done has gotten rid of the overpowering smell in the apartment home we have available. We have had the HVAC system treated with a neutralizer, used the OZONE Machine, sealed all the holes we could find between floors and have tried just about every type of air freshener! And we still cannot get rid of the cigarette smell. Every time we have shown the apartment, the first comment people make is that it smells terrible, so I’m sure that has been a huge part of the reason we have not been able to rent that unit. Could you give me any suggestions on what I could do about getting that apartment leased? Is there any other property that may have had this issue before and do you know what they did to resolve the problem? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

As crazy as it sounds, what about advertising a "smoker's special" and trying to rent that apartment to a smoker?

Hi Mary. Yes, had the exact same issue. I ended up renting it to another Resident, also a smoker, with a free transfer. Since his unit style was in demand, I raised the rental rate on the former unit and made it all work. Once he transferred, the building was inhabited by all non smokers and everyone was happy.