Some people (smokers) find it strange or rude that we have made the decision not to rent to smokers.  It is a decision that is purely grounded in the landlord's most obvious motivator - the bottom line.  Smokers add cost in that they:

1. make apartments smell like smoke, rendering the apartment more difficult to rent
2. make carpet smell like smoke which has to be replaced
3. stain walls with smoke which then have to be sealed and repainted
4. smoke in public stairwells which wafts into neighboring apartments and creates complaints to management which diverts our office staff from other tasks
5. litter on the property where they discard cigarette butts, thereby adding to the cost of groundskeeping

Some smokers ask if they can lease an apartment if they smoke outside.  Again, I get complaints from non-smoking neighbors (see 4 above) about the odor from smokers on breezeways and balconies, so the answer is no.  Furthermore, experience has taught me that this is rarely the case - smokers, regardless of their promises, will smoke in their apartment (see 1-3 above).

Some have said that this practice is discriminatory - it is not.  Fair Housing law requires that your landlord be blind to the your race, gender or family status - however, it does not require the landlord to accept your choices regarding personal habits.  We cannot physically/ethically change our race, our sex, or abandon our children just to get an apartment - one can, however, choose to smoke and this is the difference.  This is akin to rules stating "we only allow two persons per bedroom" or "we do not rent to felons" - so long as every person is required to meet this rule, the rule is considered legitimate under Fair Housing law.

Each lease that we sign reads "This apartment is to be maintained as a non-smoking apartment" and we mean it.  If we discover that you have been smoking in the apartment you lease, at best, your lease will not be renewed, but, more likely, you will be evicted for this lease violation.