Background: I bought a cabinet on Craigslist to display part of my collection. As soon as I got it into the house my wife told me, "It smells like cigarettes." Sure enough, I didn't originally notice it in the guy's house because the whole place smelled that way but I sure can pick up on it now. I've tried a lot of different cleaners and while I've knocked the smell down it's still distinct, especially inside where it is all closed up. So here's my question: if I store my TF's in there are they going to pick up that obnoxious odor? I don't smoke, there's nothing new floating around in the air; it's just the smell itself coming out of the wood. Is that going to stick to or penetrate the toy plastic?
It's a wooden curio cabinet, so mainly glass on the sides, front and a mirror on the back. Solid wood along all four corners, top and bottom. The shelves are glass. I pulled out all the glass to clean individually and even replaced the vinyl plastic strips that hold them in place. I tried cleaning the wood with a vinegar/water solution, then left it outside to air out in the sun for a couple days. After being inside for a week the smell came back. Why anyone would allow a fine piece of furniture to be wrecked with smoke like this is beyond me...
I bought a Quakewave that smell like cigarettes once lucky it was light and I was able to get rid of it. I heard Ozone generators do wonders like smells like that.
Smokers don't give a shit about what they are doing to their own bodies, why care about some household items. After leaving it outside for days, if the smell is still there, I'd demand a refund.
I suggest baking soda. But test a small spot first to make sure it won't damage the overall finish of the wood. BUUUUUUUT... I checked this link before suggesting it: How to Remove Smoke Smells from Wooden Furniture | Home Guides | SF Gate
Not toy related, but nowadays with less people smoking, the smell is overly obvious. We have "Loan laptops" at work, and a woman who continually borrows them for the weekend always brings them back stinking of smoke. She "contaminated" two of them, and we continually get complaints from people who borrow them. We've got to the stage that they're the last ones we loan out, and are normally reserved for her. We're currently in discussion with her manager about their department paying for one of the laptops and letting her use it instead of a PC.
I once bought a TF toy from somebody who failed to mention he smokes, so the figure arrived smelling like that awful old cigarette smell. :-/ What helped for me was putting it outside for a couple of days. Mind you, you want to evade sunlight, humidity or outright rain, etc. obviously, and don't leave it outside at night but in the end this worked for me as the toy no longer smells. I assume venting your cabinet will have the same result, although the size probably means it will take a lot longer. Definitely wouldn't recommend putting it in your room and placing figures in it, you will go nuts with the odor, and I do think it gets on your toys!
Baking soda and cat litter both can help absorb odors on toys if you seal them together for a few days, but not sure if you can ever get rid of cigarette smell that ingrained in wood.
Bro - Feebreeze that shiat and call it a day. The smell will go away. Throw a bag of cedar chips in there. I, too, wonder why people smoke inside their houses though. Taking something back from Craigslist - yeah, no. People tend not to be as chummy out in the real world as they are here on TFW.
I'll second the baking soda. Had a roommate with a dog in college who decided to get a puppy that he kept in his bedroom. The room stunk and hardwood floors were destroyed when he moved out. We put boxes of baking soda all over that room, and you could literally see halos around those boxes after a day where they were sucking the dog piss stains out of the wood in the floor.
So I just found some G1 packaging with this problem...it's a nice box for a G1 Targetmaster and I'd really like to add it to the collection...but paranoid that it's going to contaminate my other figures. Would you guys agree that it should go in the recycling bin or is there any hope? Any advice would be appreciated. That was a good one... I'm surprised nobody else seemed to appreciate this (a year and a half ago!)
That's what I'm afraid of! Well, I'm glad that I asked. Has anyone ever figured out how to clean smoke-tainted items? Would any of those methods work on paper/cardboard?
