HELP!!! Stinky humidor!!

R_M_G

I went to grab a smoke earlier today, and when I opened my humidor I was nearly knocked off my feet by the stench of an ashtray! I've been renting a room to a friend of mine and he smoked half of a Tabak Especial, one of the espresso infused kind, and liked it so much that he cut the burning part off and put the rest back into the humidor to save for another day! Does anyone know if this has ruined all the rest of the cigars? It's only been in there for two days, will this ash stench go away? Do I need to relocate to a new humidor? Do I need to trash humidor AND contents and stat from scratch?? HELP!

mrpillow

Not sure if your smokes are ruined but you should certainly give your fiend five on the head.

undulac

People have died for less than that.

doromath

jihiggs

a long time ago, I once accidentally ashed on a few of my sticks in my travel box. I didn't think anything of it and just blew the ash off. I got home having not smoked the cigars I had ashed on and put them back in my humi. the next day i opened it up and the smell of ash was very noticeable, I had to clean my travel box foam with soap and water as well as whipe out the plastic inside. also I had to remove the celo on the affected sticks and move all my cigars out. I thought that just airing it out for a while would get rid of the stench, I never got rid of the smell until I did a little sanding of the humidor. having a partially burned stick left in a humidor will most likely taint the cigars in it. baking soda is really good at absorbing smell from things. I would try that, just sift some backing soda on the cigars in a tuperware and seal it for a couple days. might want to test it on a couple cigars first, I have no idea if there is somthing in the cigar oil that might react with the baking soda, like some kind of acid. you should be able to just wipe the sticks down after that with no ill effects from the baking soda.

Smoke=Fire

betasynn

kaelaria

You have some work ahead of you. It won't air out. The good part is, the sticks will get back to normal after time in a clean humidor, but the tips above are what you need to do ASAP.

xmacro

Dustin1981

OH and dont forget that the roommate is resposible for all supplies needed for the operation. Also for a few new sticks so you have some while you are waiting for the others to return to normal.

R_M_G

Roommate has been beheaded. I'm honestly a little nervous about putting anything ON my cigars, and I'm a little wary of baking soda... won't that pull all the good aromas from the cigars as well?

Stryker808

I too have no past experiance with this, so take caution....but i would take the sticks out air em out and put em in a nother humi/ziplock/whatevers and wipe the humidore down with a damp cloth and air it out, carefull not to rub it all in. That I would (i think) get rid of most of it. maybe put some newspaper and baking soda (in a dish) in there too while the cigars are out, as mentioned above. give it a few days then reset the humi for a few more days before throwing the sticks back in. I also agree your room-mate owes you a few sticks and a bottle of scotch to pass the time waiting for it all to clear out. good luck and let us know what happens for future reference.

doromath

Goldy

I wouldn't put baking soda ON the sticks. If you want to try the baking soda I would put it in the humi without the sticks inside. I think the sticks should "heal" themselves but the humi needs some work.

bigharpoon

My heart goes out to you.

Russ55

That's awful. That roommate needs to be smacked in the head daily until this is resolved. How expensive was the humidor, and how many sticks are we talking about? It might be easier to just replace everything. As the guys above have posted you're in for a lot of work.

R_M_G

Fortunately I don't keep too many cigars on hand at any one time, and they were mostly midrange quality, nothing too boutique. Humidor included, it's about a $300 loss. I've moved all the cigars to a tupperware tub with the suggested newspaper and baking soda (i'm not going to give up on them yet!). It looks to me like everything that was in cello AND a tin or box has escaped relatively unharmed, but those were mostly small gage things that are pretty cheep to begin with.. those are being stored separately from the full size sticks, which it saddens me to say, still wreak of ash. It's been really nice here the last few days so I left the humidor open on the back porch to see if it would air out, but it's still completely disgusting. I've started shopping for a new humidor and I've already ordered some replacement cigars (with roommates debit card) so I should soon be back to "normal", but I'm going to see if I can save any of the previous collection just for reference in case this happens to anyone else and just for the challenge of it! And if you were wondering, no, this is not covered under homeowners insurance... I checked. I should've bought idiot insurance.

cabinetmaker

cabinetmaker

bernard_bus

Time for a new roomie. This story made me shake my head a few times. Goooood luck!

Fourtotheflush

sorry dude, let us know how it turns out and what you did to fix it.

R_M_G

The humidor may be saved! It's been sitting outside in the breeze for two days, and tonight when I got home I checked and it actually smelled more like cedar than ash! I took some fine grain sandpaper and went over the interior to get some action out of the cedar then started the conditioning process as if it were new... At last inspection it was holding pretty steady on the humidity and I couldn't detect any ash smell over the cedar! The cigars are still in the ICU. Definitely still smell like ash, but every time I remove the newspaper it also smells like ash, so it IS definitely pulling stuff out of the air... we'll see if it can pull enough to save the stogies!! Thanks for all the advice & sympathies!

R_M_G

Well, after much effort and a few four letter words I've abandoned the "save the humi" project... I made Roommate buy the stinky humidor from me so that he never has to use mine again. I'm hanging onto the 20 or so sticks that were contaminated, keeping them in a tuppordor with newspaper to continue filtering stuff out and these are now the cigars for the mooches who show up and want to smoke my smokes and drink all my wine! ...they wont know the difference anyway! It's a shame, it's the first and only humidor I've ever had... *sniff*... Oh well, time to move on up anyway!

KCW

R_M_G:

Well, after much effort and a few four letter words I've abandoned the "save the humi" project... I made Roommate buy the stinky humidor from me so that he never has to use mine again. I'm hanging onto the 20 or so sticks that were contaminated, keeping them in a tuppordor with newspaper to continue filtering stuff out and these are now the cigars for the mooches who show up and want to smoke my smokes and drink all my wine! ...they wont know the difference anyway! It's a shame, it's the first and only humidor I've ever had... *sniff*... Oh well, time to move on up anyway!

You'll be better off. Get a Humi with a lock & key.. Hide the key..

Sandman1am

KCW:

R_M_G:

Well, after much effort and a few four letter words I've abandoned the "save the humi" project... I made Roommate buy the stinky humidor from me so that he never has to use mine again. I'm hanging onto the 20 or so sticks that were contaminated, keeping them in a tuppordor with newspaper to continue filtering stuff out and these are now the cigars for the mooches who show up and want to smoke my smokes and drink all my wine! ...they wont know the difference anyway! It's a shame, it's the first and only humidor I've ever had... *sniff*... Oh well, time to move on up anyway!

You'll be better off. Get a Humi with a lock & key.. Hide the key..

Go big or go home get a cabinet....one with a lock.