Neither Happy NOR Venting-Just stuff!

OMJ, you've lived there for 5 years already? I hope everything works out, DH and I had to throw out almost all of our SW reference guides and other expensive ones we had stored away. We had a water leak at some point in time and they were wrecked.

 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

STORE YOUR BOOKS IN AIRTIGHT CONTAINERS!

If you spill on a book, sop up what you can and put it in the freezer.

Book molds are "contagious" so if you have mold on a book but you really want to keep it, quarantine it away from other books and paper products.

 

I know. In hindsight I wish I had. It just wasn't something on my radar before.

I bought the bookcases, but was disappointed in them. They were advertised as "solid oak", but turned out to be only particle board with veneer. Feh. I don't think the guy was being dishonest; I think he actually thought they were, and just never checked or knew what to look for. I talked the price down $10/bookcase from the original, but still paid more than this type is worth. The redeeming feature, and reason I went through with it, is that they're a matching set of 3, and I figured that would be hard to find on the secondhand market. Plus I wanted to get something in short order.

 

Photos?

 

Will take some pics in a bit. Right now I'm busy lugging all those heavy boxes down from the storage shed.

 

No damage, no damage....

 

Unfortunately, there is some mildew in some of the boxes I've opened so far. Not too terrible, but it's there. Nothing spilled or leaked, it's just from the humidity from the creek. Most of the damage so far is concentrated on binders that had a cardboard base. The plastic binders weren't as susceptible. Book damage has been light so far. I'm only about 1/3 through the stack, though.

 

We've been wanting to refinance but last year the bank was not thrilled with our house being worth the same amount as our mortgage. Now it seems like we need to get a streamline FHA loan since we have a CHFA loan. Not that I know what any of this means! I wish I understood what the heck is going on. Just someone hand me where to sign.

 

About 2/3 of the way down this page is some info on treating mildew on books. Maybe it will help.

 

Suckage. I hope you get that figured out.

 

Homemade playdough is fun.

 

I

I agree but it never has the same smell as the Play-Doh brand. Smelling that takes me back.......

 

Do you mean what you said about putting a book in the freezer if something is spilled on it and isolating affected books? Or are you referring to a different page somewhere?

 

So, I'm a dummy and apparently didn't post the link....

http://www.bookthink.com/0059/59rep.htm

 

I color mine with koolaide packets so mine smells like koolaide

 

WOW, 3 Conversations and it hasn't stopped or messed any of us up so far.

QHM, our books were too far gone to save, but if we knew some of those tricks it might have saved some. It was very sad, I would say we have at least $1,000 in SW books.

FF, DH & I just talked about this the other day, we have something like 6.75% but we are house is worth 50 to 70K more then our loan, so we are safe there. Would love to get down to 3% and a 15 year loan, that would knock off 5 or 6 years off our current loan. Making the call today to see what we can do. Good luck with yours, any tips let us know.

The play-doh I've made before never had the right texture either.

 

Thanks! I will check it out this weekend and see what I can do.

 

Sometimes there is nothing to be done.

 

Ooooo yum I would definitely eat you play doh

 

QHM, thanks for the link. I just finished reading through it. I have a vacuum I can use, but will need to pick up ethanol and lysol. I have isopropyl alcohol, but not ethyl alcohol, and while they have many uses in common, I'm not sure whether this is one of them or not.

I think I'll have to cart the books and binders outside for cleaning in batches. For the cardboard-based binders, I'll likely have to toss them and replace with plastic. Hopefully the notes inside, though also effected, will survive. It's a shame about the binders - I got them from my dad, who had them from long ago, so they're sort of sentimental.

 

So, I thought occurred to me.

Living next to a stream, the air outside my house tends to have a bit more humidity than some other locations. The mildew-recovery advice talks about taking the books out in the sun for a while to dry out the mold and mildew. I don't have sun, and there's the humidity conditions. This might not be the situation I'm aiming for.

What about a hair dryer on a very light setting? (outside, as I don't want to blow the spores around in the house)

 

I would think a hair dryer would be fine. Just be careful that you don't start a fire. Sorry about your binders.

 

This process is long and slow. Dry out (in front of space heater), vacuum, wipe with ethanol, vacuum, dry out some more... each book is a pain. This is going to take forever.

 

I gave up on the denatured ethanol, as it didn't seem to be strong enough. Besides, I was suspicious of the fact that it smelled somewhat like acetone to me. Anyway, I started using lysol to wipe them down instead. First batch is airing/drying out now. I'm worried that even with all the wiping and cleaning, they still smell like mildew.