If you don't want to read my sad story below, here's my question:
Mice got into my books and peed on the outer page surfaces. Is there any good way to clean this? I had just planned on using warm water and a towel (and some rubber gloves).
I (kind of) recently bought a house and have been remodeling, and most of my possessions are currently sitting in a storage facility (including most of my books). In fact, a lot of my books have been there since I moved a few years ago. Most of them are stored in plastic totes, which keeps them in good condition, but some are still in cardboard boxes. Anyway, I had been searching my storage space for a particular book, but had been unable to find it until today. Today I found that I had packed it, and a few other books, away into a cardboard box with some other miscellaneous items and at some point during storage mice had gotten into the box. There were dried mouse droppings which really didn't do any damage, but there is some mouse urine on the pages of three very important (to me) books.
I am really kicking myself for not storing these in the plastic tubs. I can't think of any reason why I would have put these three treasured books into the cardboard box, unless I thought that I would be unpacking this box shortly after moving. But as fate had it, I ended up in transition for a few years while my stuff all sat in storage. To make matters worse, these books were sitting on their spines with the page ends facing upwards. As you can imagine, this is the worst possible position for books to be in if a mouse is peeing on them -- the urine soaks into the pages. Why I stored them like that I don't know, because this is also a very bad way for books to sit. Three of the books could be replaced (at expense), but one is now out of print. Stupid, stupid stupid.
Mice got into my books and peed on the outer page surfaces. Is there any good way to clean this? I had just planned on using warm water and a towel (and some rubber gloves).
I (kind of) recently bought a house and have been remodeling, and most of my possessions are currently sitting in a storage facility (including most of my books). In fact, a lot of my books have been there since I moved a few years ago. Most of them are stored in plastic totes, which keeps them in good condition, but some are still in cardboard boxes. Anyway, I had been searching my storage space for a particular book, but had been unable to find it until today. Today I found that I had packed it, and a few other books, away into a cardboard box with some other miscellaneous items and at some point during storage mice had gotten into the box. There were dried mouse droppings which really didn't do any damage, but there is some mouse urine on the pages of three very important (to me) books.
I am really kicking myself for not storing these in the plastic tubs. I can't think of any reason why I would have put these three treasured books into the cardboard box, unless I thought that I would be unpacking this box shortly after moving. But as fate had it, I ended up in transition for a few years while my stuff all sat in storage. To make matters worse, these books were sitting on their spines with the page ends facing upwards. As you can imagine, this is the worst possible position for books to be in if a mouse is peeing on them -- the urine soaks into the pages. Why I stored them like that I don't know, because this is also a very bad way for books to sit. Three of the books could be replaced (at expense), but one is now out of print. Stupid, stupid stupid.
