So You Want to Sell your Home? You'll have to quit smoking first!

So You Want to Sell your Home? You'll have to quit smoking first! (edit/delete)

When it is time to sell your home, there are so many things you need to think about. First impressions are very important. You will want to make sure that your home is pleasing from the curb. A well-manicured lawn, neatly trimmed plantings and a welcoming front entrance are a good place to start. Make sure the front door is freshly painted and hang a pretty wreath.

Your home can be an absolute showplace, but when the Realtor opens the front door for the buyer and the scent of cigarette smoke wafts out, your home is automatically off the top 2 list. You see, when I am working with buyers and we have a long list of homes to see, I instruct them to rule houses out. I ask them to compare the first house to the second house and pick the one they like the best. Then, I ask them to compare the third home with the home they picked out of the first two and pick the one they like the best. This enables them, if they are consistent and consciously choosing a home out of two all day, to have two top picks. And if you are a smoker, I can guarantee you, that your home will not be one of the top two.

Thankfully, the Pennsylvania Clean Indoor Air Act (CIAA) took effect on September 11, 2008. This act prohibits smoking in most public places and workplaces across our Commonwealth. The one place smokers still feel comfortable smoking, unfortunately for their loved ones, is in their homes. Smoking in your home can lower, almost assuredly, the resale value of your most valuable asset. I can tell you that most home buyers will not be interested in the amount of work it takes to eradicate the smell of cigarettes in a home. These houses often require all new paint, carpeting and window treatments. I actually think that if a buyer had to choose between a house with pet odor or the smell of a heavy smoker, the buyer would pick the home with the pet odor.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Tobacco Control Project is a regional coalition of health professionals and tobacco control advocates working to combat tobacco use and improve access to tobacco control services across Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Montgomery and Schuylkill counties.They provided me with the following statistics:

• Beyond the resale value of your home, cigarettes are a leading cause of home fire fatalities in the U.S., killing 700 to 900 - smoker and non-smokers alike - per year. (National Fire Protection Association).
• The financial impact of smoking is not limited to the resale value of your home, it affects everyone. Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids estimates that smokers cost Pennsylvania more than $4 billion a year in lost productivity. Health care costs directly caused by smoking costs the state more than $5 billion a year and residents' state and federal tax burden from smoking-caused government expenditures are almost $700 per household.
• Smoking kills an estimate 20,100 adults each year in Pennsylvania. It kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, and car crashes combined. With a slumping economy, there has never been a more appropriate time to consider quitting. Cessation and prevention programs play an important role in reducing health care costs and they've never been more accessible to the community.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Tobacco Control Project also provided me a complete list of local smoking cessation resources available to us in our area. They are as follows:

ChesPenn Health Services

2900 W. 9^th St Floor 2 North

Chester, PA 19013

610.380.4660 x230

Chester County Health Department

601 Westtown Rd., Suite 290

West Chester, PA 19382

610.344.6685

Chester County Hospital

701 E. Marshall Street

West Chester, PA 19380

610.738.2542

Main Line Health Tobacco Program

1068 W. Baltimore Pike

Media, PA 19063

610.891.3560

Maternal & Child Health Consortium

30 W. Barnard St., Suite 1

West Chester, PA 19382

610.344.5370

Phoenixville Hospital

Community Health Education & Outreach Department

PO Box 3001

Phoenixville, PA 19460

610.983.1295

Southeast Pennsylvania Area Health Education Center

35 S. High Street

West Chester, PA 19382

610.430.7500

More information on the Coalition and tobacco control services in the area, as well as throughout the seven-county region can be found at www.hpc.tobaccorfp.org/.

Questions can also be directed to their toll-free number and email address: 866.756.5412 | SEPAtobacco@phmc.org