My House Smells Like Stale Death

I love our new house. I love the space, I love the light, I love the floors -- I even love the potential I see in the backyard (after I rip out a couple dying trees).

But I hate the smell.

Damnit, why the hell would anyone go through the trouble of re-painting every room in a house -- presumably to make it easier to sell -- and then shut all the windows and smoke pack after pack after pack after pack of cigarettes like you were trying to create some new kind of cancer that only effects dry wall.

I'm not judging you for smoking. I smoked for years, and believe me, I was enamored with my habit. It felt good, it tasted good, and I won't lie: it made me look cool. In fact, the thought of spending another day scrubbing walls and bleaching bathrooms really makes me want a fucking cigarette.

However, after mixing cleaning concoctions of ammonium, baking powder and vinegar, then rubbing it for hours on all the walls --plus bombing the bathrooms with enough bleach to burn off all my nose hair -- you'd think that the stank of stale death wouldn't great me three feet from the entrance. But that thought would be wrong.

We have some guys coming to clean the vents this weekend, we'll be scrubbing the wood after that, and I hear rumors that if you leave your windows open for days at a time the stink will eventually go away. If that doesn't work, we'll cut our losses, cover the smell with primer, re-paint all the walls, and try and take comfort in the fact that this house was as affordable as it was.

Does anyone think it'd work if I just Febreezed the shit out of everything?

PS: That's tar on the fan blade in the above photo. The white patch is where Amanda rubbed it off with the hardcore cleaning solution. Awesome.