So I just moved into my own flat a week ago, and I've got about a hundred books that I would really like to get the smoke smell out of from my last roommate's office where they were stored.

I've done a lot of reading and it's like put a book in a freezer bag with cedar chips, or invoke the five names of Tycho or whatnot, which is fine for doing one at a time.. but I would love to find a method that would work more in bulk as it were so I'm not hand-wrapping a hundred books in dryer sheets or such.

Any ideas greatly appreciated.

Put them in a big box, with lots of air and stuff. Then unload a can of aerosol Febreze.

I don't know man.. that smells seems to permeate everything, combine that with the porous nature of paper and I'd imagine it's going to be really hard to get rid of. Best thing, like you said, is probably to mask it with something else.

Only thing I can think of would be to burn incense or something that you like the smell of in a closed in space with all the books. I have no idea how well that would work, though.

And welcome back, I can't remember the last time I saw you post.

I would have to say that depending on the age of the office, and how many people have smoked there in the past, you may never get all the smoke smell out. When I last went to old parliment house, which hasnt been used by politicians in decades (and the no smoking in indoor public areas law has been in place for over 14 years), and some of the rooms STILL have a very vague, but definately noticeable, smell of old cigarette smoke. So, if you are realy sensitive to the smell, you probably will have to use chemicals that you will also be sensitive to get rid of all of the latent smoke smell, and then you will just have latent cleaning chemical smell to deal with instead.

So, in closing, I dont have a damn clue as to how you can get rid of the smell entirely without replacing it with the smell of harsh cleaning chemicals in the process.


Also: long time no post dormouse.

Incense is probably your best bet.

Why I rarely smoke inside.

There are products made for removing smoke smells from clothing and surfaces, but I doubt they would be safe on paper. Your best bet is to find an antiques store that deals in books and ask them how to remove the smell.

To quote either you or kalimonster:

Fire. It burns **** up, precious.

Also: huggle!

Take dryer sheets and rub them over the pages. Take a bunch and put them between the sheets and let it sit.

Newspaper can also help sometimes as well.

This isn't really feasible since he has a hundred books to do.

Then he's going to have a hundred smoky books. It's the most cost effective solution, I promise.

You can use the sheets of paper (dryer or newspaper) a couple of times if you really want.

EDIT:That would be the reason I repeated what he said already. Anything else will ruin the books. I've had the same problem the dryer sheets is the easiest, even if you just dump a bunch in a box full of books.

Try to find a college chemistry student and see if they can lend you a fume hood or something and pump some incense in there.

This should be Smoking De-Books

Uh, chem students don't usually just have a fume hood sitting around. They're usually morbidly expensive to buy (though cheap to make, they are very crappy if homemade usually), unless they're grads and have their own lab.

Though if you can pull this off go for it I guess.

I think he means find a chem student that has access to a fume hood.

Ah, well I think most chemistry labs would frown upon that kind of use of a fume hood :p

They frown about a lot of things that get done.

It's not too bad. They're more concerned about students stealing lab-grade ether.

I'm sure there's other things that they're scared of all things considered haha.

Wth is a fume hood?

Dunno but it sounds fun

It's like the fan above a stove, except instead of making sure the oder of your mother's awful cooking is immediately pumped out of the area, it pumps dangerous chemical fumes out of a lab.

Are you people serious when you don't know what a fume hood is?

Thanks for the ideas. I'll give a try. Right now I've got them all fanned out in front of an ionizing fan and gassed in febreeze..