How to Smoke Weed Inside Your House or Hotel Without Getting Caught

I remember when I first smoked weed inside someone's house. I was in college at the time, and it was a house where my friend from school lived. Cops were called because the neighbors hated us, and I ended up jumping out a window to avoid arrest.

It was then I realized that learning how to smoke weed inside was something I had to do—unless, of course, I wanted to have a nice, long career as a convicted felon.

Truthfully, it's an important skill to have for more reasons than just avoiding the police. Knowing how to smoke without raising a stink makes you a better houseguest, too.

Thankfully, learning how to smoke inside a house or hotel is fairly easy to do. Here are some tips I learned from friends, as well as tricks I learned on my own.

First things first, use your common sense about where you're going to smoke.

One of the easiest ways to get caught smoking weed inside is to choose the wrong building to smoke in. Before you light up, take a look at your surroundings and ask if it seems like the kind of place where people will call the cops over pot.

If you have very bitchy apartment neighbors who've been trying to get you evicted, then you probably should not smoke in your apartment. It's not worth the risk, and you don't want to deal with the potential of a pissed-off landlord. If your mom is home and she's threatened to call the police if you use drugs at home, don't do it. She might actually do it.

On the other hand, if you already smell pot smoke wafting down your hallway, it's going to be a safe bet that cops probably won't come knocking on your door. Similarly, if you're in your own house and you have 420-friendly roommates, you'll probably be fine.

If you're in a warehouse party, smoking marijuana is probably the least of your worries. In fact, it's safe to assume you already know how to smoke weed inside if you're invited to these things. If cops do get called, they will probably be more worried about the heroin users or the guy who just proposed to a potted plant than you.

Generally speaking, hotels already know that there's illicit stuff going on inside them—but if it's too obvious, they may fuss about it. Most upscale hotels will notice if you smoke pot and may end up charging you extra for cleaning. Cheap hotels will generally not care WHAT you do as long as you don't light the place on fire or piss on the bed.

Don't act dodgy when bringing the goods inside.

I'm going to assume that you know how to smoke weed in public. Learning how to smoke weed inside without getting caught means that you have to actually get the weed inside the venue, first. The best way to do it? Act casually and just assume it's safe.

Nosy neighbors will notice if you look side to side before you enter your own home, and so will cop cars that might be driving by. If you want to smoke inside, don't act like a dodgy dumbass outside.

If it helps, get yourself a clever weed container that keeps things super-discrete. Just don't act like a sketchy person.

Always ask if you're a guest in someone's house—and respect it if they say no.

Seriously, it's their home and that means they make the rules. Don't be the guest that oversteps their bounds and upsets the host. If they ask you to smoke outside, do what they tell you to do.

Obviously, if you're at a hotel in a state where marijuana is still illegal, asking them permission isn't wise. They might actually just call the cops on you if you do. So, if you're in a rent-a-room, don't be an idiot and cause the cops to get called to your room.

However, if you're doing the whole "green tourism" thing, your hotel hosts might actually tell you how to smoke weed inside your room according to their room policy. So if you're in a green state, check to see if the hotel is 420-friendly before you light up.

Do the bathroom thing if you want to reduce the amount of risk as much as possible.

For many people, learning how to smoke inside without getting caught first starts in the bathroom. To smoke in a bathroom without getting caught, grab your regular shower supplies, a joint you've rolled up, a cardboard toilet paper roll tube, and a dryer sheet.

Once you have all the supplies, you then:

1. Cram a towel into the crack of the door, and turn on the shower. Let it get steamy.
2. Put the dryer sheet (or sheets) into the cardboard tube. Keep this handy before you light up.
3. Light up the joint once your bathroom starts to resemble a steam room. The steam will cancel out the smoke from the light joint.
4. To smoke, inhale the joint, then blow the smoke through the carboard tube. This keeps the smoke from smelling.
5. Flush the roach down the toilet once you're done, then use the bathroom vent to get rid of the smoke/steam. No evidence, no problem!

If you need to smoke in a living room or bedroom, know when to open a window.

One of the most important things to understand about learning how to smoke weed inside without getting caught is how smoke travels. Windows will make the smoke go outside rather than further around your home.

If you want to be discrete, you need to ensure that others in your building don't smell it coming from your room. Opening a window will help you make sure that smell is kept to a minimum.

People who are on the second floor or higher will probably find it easiest to just smoke out the window. Usually, it's a fairly safe bet.

If you're in an apartment that's 420-friendly (see above), there's probably no need to to open a window. Still, it's better to do so, simply because you don't want pot funk all over your stuff.

The only times you shouldn't open a window is when you're on the first floor of an apartment near the streets. The reason why is because passers-by will smell it, and if a cop is walking on patrol, you'll end up getting arrested.

If you're smoking in a hotel room, you can also throw off the scent a bit by lighting a scented candle.

It's a lot harder to identify the smell of pot smoke when there are other competing smells in the area. That's why a very strongly scented candle is often a great companion for those who enjoy smoking pot inside hotel rooms.

My advice would be to try using the "tube with dryer sheet" method to further help muffle the smell of ganja, then to pick a powerful candle. Usually, any candles that get rid of pet smells will also get rid of cannabis odor.

Also, do NOT use incense in a hotel room. Incense is way, way more likely to trip the smoke detector than a scented candle will be. If the smoke alarm goes off, you're screwed—so remember that.

Don't use Febreze or cheap incense for masking the smell of weed.

Here's one thing I've learned about how to smoke weed inside without getting caught: being stereotypical about how you cover your tracks is a dead giveaway. That's why one of the tips I share is to avoid the hackneyed unless no other options exist.

Believe it or not, parents and landlords were your age once—and they know what that cheap incense from Spencer's Gifts tends to smell like when it's masking the scent of weed. They will know the smell of air freshener mixed with reefer for the same reason.

Parents and nosy roommates also will realize you're probably not spraying Febreze because you're a neat freak if your room has clothing articles that are an inch away from learning how to crawl.

Better options? Scented candles, heavily spiced food (if you're baking and baking), oil diffusers, exhaling via the toilet paper tube trick, and mulled apple cider all work pretty well.

Smoke near an indoor fireplace if you can.

Here's a great tip you'll find helps hide the smell of weed: smoke near the fireplace, while there's a nice fire blazing. The smoke of the fire makes it easy to mask the pot smell, and you already get all the ventilation you'd need via the chimney.

Sadly, most guides won't tell you how to smoke inside a place that has a fireplace... primarily because it's really fancy. If you're able to own a fireplace, chances are you can pay for a hotel policy that will tell people to look the other way—or for enough space that it wouldn't matter.

To this day, I still consider this one of my favorite life hacks for stoners.

Use a vaporizer to minimize the smell.

There's a reason why smoking with a vaporizer is so "in" right now—and it's not just because vaporizers are stylish weed accessories. It's because they allow you to smoke without having to worry about too much smoke. It's as discrete as you can get.

Lastly, don't smoke near sensitive people—even if they wouldn't snitch on you.

Pregnant women, young kids, and people suffering from serious lung issues do not need to have pot smoke wafting around them—even if they'd never tell the police on you.

Though studies do suggest that marijuana is safer than cigarettes, the fact is it's better to be safe than sorry when you're dealing with a pregnant woman, a baby, or someone who just had a collapsed lung. You don't want to be "that guy," right?

The bottom line with this tip? While learning how to smoke weed inside is important, being courteous still matters.