We have been renting an townhouse type apartment (contected to two adjacent apartments) for the last year and even since we have moved in, we have noticed a musty, smokey smell in the apartment. Our clothes stink and even guests we have in notice it. The carpet is that old shag carpeting and you can tell it has never been changed. We also noticed that when the neighbor moved out, the landlords "handyman" spent a couple days coming in with buckets to clean, but NOT a carpet scrubber or professional cleaner in to clean the carpets right. Our dog has also scratched herself to the point of scabbing, but when at other houses never scratches once. Is there anything we can do about this, besides mentioning it to her? We feel that she will give us the run around or try to keep our security deposit. Also,our adjacent neighbors smoke and our apartment fills with the strong smell of smoke when they light up (three/four times a day). When I brought it to her attention, she said to crack a window or get an air purifier... We were not amused, seeing how we are in the middle of winter... PLEASE HELP!!

Rent a carpet cleaning and clean your carpet, when you did your inspection prior to renting is the time to really bring these up before renting.

You can ask for it but I am not sure they well.

Also if you have smoke issues in the apartment, they make several good air purification machines, we use one in our home due to my allergies.