Mothball smell - i feel sick!!

Patentleathershoes

VFG Veteran
VFG Past President
Okay - here's the situation.

My husband gave me a beautiful cashmere coat for christmas last year. Knock me over with a feather but he took the time and care to get me a vintage one and I love it! Last year i didn't wear it much. I did - but it was put it on, get to destination, hang it up at the host/hostess's house, and put it on to go home. Now, today i put it on for the second time this year. the first time was an in and out. Today i was weaing it for 4-5 hours continuously.

The problem is that there is wiff of mothball smell that gradually has driven me to a nauseous headache. (i can even sort of taste it in my mouth - thats how bad) My blazer and shirt i was wearing under it now smell like it. I don't know if people around me can really smell it or not. How embarrassing that would be "ihmm...that really smells old!"

Now that i have changed and have had some aspirin.....

We have talked about mothballs before, and as I recall some of the suggestions were 1) hang it outside 2) let it lay fallow like toxic waist for 50 years lol. 3) don't use them in the first place.

It has sat in a front hall closet with shoes and a handful of other coats for a year and hasn't been exposed to any mothballs (probably not since "back in the day" - whoever the original owner was.) so just letting it sit and take care of itself obviously hasn't work.

Other suggestions i have found on the internet:

* Soak with baking soda or white vinegar and baking soda together in water.
- Put the delicate fabric in a pillow case with a knot tied in it and put it in the washing machine or sink with baking soda

Problem: Its a cashmere coat and i am not going to risk getting it wet

* Hang clothes outdoors on a windy day for a few hours,

Five words. Heavily treed lot (leaves falling everywhere). Rain. Wildlife

I have hung things in our lanai/florida room thingie and it works sometimes but it then makes the chaise lounge reek. I did that last year actually with this coat, if i recall.

* Tumble in dryer (no heat)

I am scared - won't it make my other clothes smell for future loads? WIlling to try if someone promises it won't.

I have also heard of drycleaning it. I will not take it to my drycleaner though because there are a lot of working cowboys and farm hands in the area who take their jeans to be drycleaned at that cleaner. (they actually have a price list for dress shirts, work shirts, and i kid you not, cowboy shirts). And i am not talking about the type like D. Wayne Lucas who has creases and pleats ironed in. I worked at a horse stable before and i would never subject the public to my jeans! Anyway - they bottom line is that there is no seperate machine that just does pretty dresses or tuxes - it all goes in the same machines so everything comes out with a little bit of a funk to it
when washed with thrice worn jeans.

So i guess my options are somehow sealing it in with a box of baking soda? I may need 40 boxes. I am afraid to Febreze it in fear of it getting spots.

Anyone have any other ideas?
 
My dry cleaner offers an ozone treatment for removal of odor. I asked once as a dress came back lovely and clean but still smelled of old lady perfume (this sister must have bathed in the stuff!). They would have to "send it off" to have it done, but according to them it will even remove ciggy smoke...and we know what a choke hold that stuff can have.
I envision a wind tunnel, but really have no idea what the treatment method is like.

Bless your poor hubby's heart, he tried!
 
Originally posted by Patentleathershoes
We have talked about mothballs before, and as I recall some of the suggestions were .... 2) let it lay fallow like toxic waist for 50 years lol.

Anyway - they bottom line is that there is no seperate machine that just does pretty dresses or tuxes - it all goes in the same machines so everything comes out with a little bit of a funk to it when washed with thrice worn jeans.

Quite the delema at the cleaners, eh? :wacko:

I purchased a late 30's wool coat at a yard sale a year & 1/2 ago when visiting my dad. I bought it for ME. It has persian lamb trim that can not be removed for cleaning. The thing smelled like mothballs. Not a CRAZY reek, but it's very much there.

I have it hanging up in the spare bedroom at his house (well, I'm here right now) and every other month I hang it up inside out, then reverse it again in another two months. It's coming along, but it just takes time.

I expect to be wearing it next winter, but it will be worth the wait. :asleep:

Mom's faux fur leopard cat took 3 years to get the smoke REEK out by this method, but it worked well enough to sell it. I dry cleaned it first, then started the lloooooonnnnggggg hanging-out process. :asleep: :asleep:

Janine
 
Chris I feel for you! I was at a costume auction the other month and one of the ladies was wearing a big black fur coat which she quite obviously stored in mothballs. If she stood near me for more than 5 minutes I had to go and move as it just make me feel exactly the same, sick and headache-y. She mustn't have been sensitive to it as there is no way you could wear it all morning if you were.

I read that if you get things with mothball chemicals wet it is even harder to remove them, as they expand and embed themselves further into the fibres (that is my very non-scientific explanation) - I'll see if I can find the article.

Sometimes when I have washed things that I didn't even notice smelt a bit mothbally before they went in, and they have come out stinking. Oh, the glamorous life of a vintage clothing seller!

Air is definitely the answer, one way or another, and I see carbon to absorb as much of the smell as possible would be a good thing.
 
hi... ..i have the same problem with a beaverlamb/ broadtail coat.. that i bought a while back...

i now have it in a cardboard clothes box.... with newspaper... which i have changed daily......

i bought shoe ordour eaters.... and yes the smell is going.....

i am waiting for a very frosty spell in the weather.. so i can put it outside for a few hours like someone suggested to me in this forum.....

so maybe that will be the final thing that will completely get rid of the smell....

def.. worth a go.....
 
Back
Top