How much nicotine has to be on a wall to bleed through fresh paint?

We rented a house out to smokers who smoked in the house. How do we get rid of the nicotine? Can we Kilz it with water base, then paint? Or do we HAVE to oil-base Kilz it? Can we clean the walls, then paint? They lived there for 1 year. 2 smokers.How much nicotine has to be on a wall to bleed through fresh paint?
Nicotine is water soluble so it will bleed through all latex paint. If it looks yellow it will bleed.





Either wash the walls down well with TSP or use an alcohol based primer such as Zinnser, Zerolac or Bullseye spray shellac (if small area) Or paint over with alkyd based primer.





Paint as normal.





All of these primers have very high VOC levels. So washing is the least smelly.How much nicotine has to be on a wall to bleed through fresh paint?
The nicotine is oil based. I would definately clean the walls and then go from there. You wll then have your choice of what kind of paint you want to paint with. If you can find bright n shine, or tcp (any color paint), oxyclean (white paint) make sure you wear plastic gloves too ok. Heres some discusson on it. Make sure you do a test spot before doing the walls to see how it affects the paint, you may find that you wont need to paint once its cleaned.
Wash the walls then paint. No big deal. If you can't see it, just paint the walls.