How do you get a mothball smell out of an old cedar chest?

[coriolis]

How about using a hair dryer? I have to believe that heat would make the chemical evaporate, and the moving air would take it away.

[MomH]

Our local Red Cross brought my daughter a bottle of something that took the burned and smoke smell out of her clothes and photos when her trailor burned to the ground. Your local Red Cross or fire department might know what it is. I spent hours trimming and wiping down the photos with a solution of this stuff. The clothes just went in the washing machine with it.

[HurricaneGirl]

Found this helpful hint doing a google search:


With a musty-smelling trunk or an old suitcase, the technique that Mr. HandyPerson has had great success with is this: Empty a small box of baking soda into the trunk or suitcase, fill most of it up with crumpled newspaper, close it up, rotate it end-over-end a few times to get the baking soda spread around to all interior surfaces, and let it set for a couple of weeks, maybe turning it occasionally to keep the baking soda moving around inside.

Then remove the papers and vacuum out the baking soda. Chances are, the trunk or old suitcase will no longer have the musty smell. This will work with mothball odor, too, a smell as bad or worse to Mr. HP.