How to Remove Odors From Books

If you must store your books or if you live in a house with pets or cigarette smoke, chances are good that your books have gotten stinky at some point. However, it's easy to remove odors from books in a few quick and easy steps.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Method 1

1. Place your musty book on a cooling rack or some other raised, slotted surface. You want to make sure that air can circulate on all sides of the book to efficiently remove and kill the odors.

2. Put a deodorizer or other smell absorber like charcoal under the rack. In this way, the fumes from the deodorizer can work their way up and around the book to rid it of the smell.

3. Cover the book and rack with some sort of top. It could be a glass or plastic cake stand top or even a large mixing bowl. The purpose is to enclose the book so that the smell can be removed or overcome.

Method 2

4. Wipe any dampness, dust or mildew off of your books with newspaper that is several days old. However, if the newspaper is old enough to smell musty, it just defeats the purpose.

5. Insert sheets of newspaper between some of the pages. It's not necessary to put paper between all of the pages, but space it periodically throughout the book.

6. Crumple up more newspaper and put it into a shoe box, suitcase, garbage bag or other large container along with the book and some chunks of charcoal.

7. Leave the book and newspaper sealed for several days to allow the charcoal and newspaper to soak up any odors and dampness that might linger.

Resources

• Learn to pack and store books effectively.

[Bethj]

on 12/11/2008 There is a great new product on the market that is perfect for this. It's called a room shocker. It's designed to eliminate odors by destroying the bacteria, mold and mildew that causes them. You can take one of these Room Shocker's and stick it in a closet with the books that need treatment. It will do the trick. You can find it on a website called BiocideSystems.com