Mold Removal

[Mr. Guy]

Question for the group, with a little back story.
Has anyone successfully removed mold from a humidor? As in, you owned and maintained a humidor where one disappointing day you opened it up to the sight of mold on the wood, performed some sort of cleanup project, reintroduced the sticks and continued to maintain, hopefully at a better level, the humidor mold free for some time. If so, what was your process? Also, have you attempted a de-molding project only to have the offending critters show up again?
I was "only looking" at my local antiques shops a couple months ago and found a decent humidor, well as decent as a mass produced Chineese box could be. Likely marketed as a 150 to 200 count humidor. Price was 5 bucks, so it would be super uncool of me not to buy it. I'm guessing the previous owner got out of cigars due to a rather large mold infestation primarily on the shelf, centered right under the green foam circle of spores, I mean under the florist foam humidifier. The plan was, and likely still is, to use it for accessory storage, but then I got to wondering if it would be worth the effort to try and clean up. Might be worth a shot even if just to pass along some info to someone who finds themselves in a situation where mold removal would be the only option.

 

[Lionel]

$5 box? Would kind of wood is it? I would suggest investing a little bit more to get a better humidor, besides a lot of cedar wood humidors are rather cheap. Better to spend a bit to store your expensive cigars properly.

I'd use alcohol swabs on the problem areas of the wood; it kills mold very well, and let it dry, then do the steps to re humidify again. That's what I'd do ....

 

[Bruce T.]

Yeah, like Lionel said, use alcohol. You can use rubbing alcohol instead of the little wipes because you may need a lot of it. Wash it with the alcohol, let it sit to evaporate and then do it again until there are no visible spores left. You need to do this even if you're only using it for accessories anyway. If the mold has stained the wood you can use some fine sandpaper to clean the surface.

 

[Mossome]

I wouldn't risk it. Even if you clean any visible trace of it, any microscopic residue hidden in the pores of the wood is a ticking time bomb that will eventually explode into another infestation. You might think "Oh well, it's just $5 I'm risking.", but I'm sure the cigars you'll want to store in it are worth more.

 

[Mr. Guy]

Just to clarify, my expensive and, more often than not, cheap cigars have comfortable homes with ample room for neighbors to move in for quite some time. I don't need this humidor for cigar storage, and infact that has never really been the plan. It just got me curious if anyone has first hand experience with attempting to remedy this type of situation and what the results were. It's the nature of any type of forum to give advice based on a friend's uncle who knows a guy that read an article... written by a COP! I'm guessing real world examples of this haven't happened, or at least no one wants to admit it

 

[Agentskull]

Oh i am sure. There has been a few examples. But there was a bro not to long ago that tried to rehab a few Chinese humidors. They weren't worth the rehab. Spanish cedar veneer. Terrible construction. If it were a decent piece you could possibly rehab it.