Hello!

When my great-uncle died last year, I had the opportunity to acquire a couple of boxes full of books that belonged to him.

Most of them are in good condition, except that many of them spent between 20 and 50 years in a small house inhabited by two chain-smokers.

I tried taking a dusting attachment on a vacuum cleaner to the covers, dust jackets, and edges of the books to try and get the smell out...unfortunately, that didn't get whatever has lingered between each page.

I suppose I could run the vacuum through each single page, but that would take an exceedingly long time, so I was wondering if anyone had any better suggestions? Febreze seems like a nice idea, except that I don't want to damage the books.

Any thoughts would be appreciated...thanks in advance! (BTW, if this matters, these books may be re-packed and put in storage until I have a place with enough shelf space to store them in the open)

Maybe when you pack them you could put some drier sheets in there too. I bet after some time their "fresh scent" ought to penetrate the books and maybe overpower the smoke smell.

or maybe air them out at least.

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72 W114/M130

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How do you go about airing out a book? Is it a simple matter of leaving the book out in a room, or do you have to have it open in a special way, or what? Will that get the smell out of all of the pages?

I like the dryer sheet idea...coupled with the airing out, that could work...

Last year I bought a Biozone air purifier from a fellow forum member. I'm very pleased with its ability to clean the air and make things smell fresh again. It works by emitting a cleansing plasma into the air along with ions. What I appreciate most about it is that it actually cleans whatever it comes in contact with, rather than merely masking the odor.

I'd look into something like that. You could put the books into a closed room with the unit for a day or so and that should take care of most of the smell.

Here's the link:

Biozone Air Purifiers

If you decide to buy, let me know and I can forward the guy's email address to you. His name is Hunter.

BTW, I have no financial interest in this whatsoever.

Good luck!

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Current:
2014 VW Tiguan SEL 4Motion 43,000 miles.

2016 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport (wife's).

Past:
2006 Jetta TDI 135,970 miles. Sold Nov. '13.
1995 E-320 Special Edition. 220,200 miles. Sold Sept. '07.
1987 190-E 16 valve. 153,000 miles. Sold Feb. '06.
1980 300-D 225,000 miles. Donated to the National Kidney Foundation.
1980 240-D manual, 297,500 miles. Totaled by inattentive driver.

You could hang them but seems to me if you stand them on their end and open the covers a bit less then 90degrees and spread the pages as evenly as possible that surely ought to do it. You may have to play with them a bit, propping etc...Definately dark but cool dry would be best.
As to purifiers/ionizers, yup, that's probably your best bet but I think you could do it the old fashioned method discussed above.
Good luck and let us know how it goes.

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72 W114/M130

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