Cleaning advice

[ghouldilocks]

Spoiler

I've stored sine incredibly disgustingly smokey rescue ponies in sealed ziploc freezer bags with baking soda for about a month. I put 3 or 4 ponies per ziploc and added about an inch of baking soda in the bottom of the bag, sealed it up, and kept them in my garage. Then they came out as I had time and got the full open up and clean.

Ever since I came home with them, I've been scouring the archives for tips on freshening them up - a lot of people mention baking soda, kitty litter, and charcoal. I have to go to the post office tomorrow, so I would be able to stop at a store and pick up some baking soda while I'm out (we don't have any at home that can be spared). If you use it in a bag with the pony, though, I'm having a hard time visualizing that - do people just pour some baking soda into the bottom of the bag, then lay the pony near it? Or do they pretty much cover the pony with it? I saw in an older thread about freshening up smoky-smelling ponies, that someone filled the bottom of a large storage bin with baking soda, placed a smelly object in a smaller container and set that inside the large container, open (so the object wasn't actually touching the baking soda) - then sealed the large bin with its lid and left it that way over the weekend.

I love that idea, but it just isn't practical for me right now - that will probably be my last resort, intensive de-stinking if they still smell musty after being aired out, cleaned, and aired out some more.

A while ago I tried putting a group of smoky-smelling ponies in a storage container with baking soda. I put the ponies directly in the baking soda; it doesn't hurt them (though, of course, it gets all over them); and I left them for a week with the lid closed. *But*, it didn't help the smell. Maybe it was the fact that I had a whole group (10 or so?) in the bin at the same time; maybe I didn't let them stay there long enough. I really don't know why I couldn't get it to work; I was sure that would work (I had been struggling with them for a while). I had the darndest time with that lot of ponies. Nothing could remove that smoke smell except, in the end, Febreeze, which I'm not sure I'd usually recommend because I don't like spraying chemicals on ponies. Before the baking soda tub, I had already aired them out, and washed them, of course, and later I tried very brief soaks in diluted bleach and some other treatments I can't remember.

As far as actual advice, not just sad stories about my smoky ponies, since the ponies in question seem to have mold or mildew issues and not smoke issues, it might be best to take them out of the bags as soon as possible and let them air out. You mentioned you were going to put them in the shade; good thinking. They probably need to be out in the fresh air as much as possible until you can clean them. Here in humid Florida, anyway, the climate is such that it's best not to leave a pony with mold or mildew issues in a bag for more than a few days. (Smoky ponies would be fine to leave in a bag, though, especially with baking soda, as that seems to work for everyone but me! is it a climate thing??) So, you probably were already going to do this or already have, but I'd say let them out of the bags now and let them air out. You mentioned you don't have time for a thorough cleaning just yet, which I can totally sympathize with as I have a whole box of ponies marked for deep cleaning that I haven't gotten around to. The sooner you can get around to even a quick initial cleaning to just get that gunk off, of course, the better. I hope these guys clean up really well for you! Looks like you have some diamonds in the rough. Good luck!

Thanks! I'll be willing to try anything! Although maybe not Febreze, lol - I'd be too scared to spray that on ponies!  I'm with you on humidity, which is why I'd be planning to change out the bags once in a while, and not seal them completely. It's not as humid here as it is closer to the coast, but it still gets pretty bad on warmer days, so I'm counting myself lucky that I got this lot now instead of in the summer! I'm off work today, so right now they're all getting some fresh air.

We have this dog kennel thing on our back porch, and it already had a couple tarps draped over it - I pinned up a beach towel and a blanket to block out more of the sunlight, wiped down a folding table that we had in the garage, and set them all out! I wouldn't have been able to manage this if we didn't have that cage - there's a colony of stray cats in our neighborhood, and we live right by a creek, so animals wander into the backyard all the time - I'd hate to leave a pony outside and have an animal either chew it up or run off with it! So my new girls are safely shut inside:

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I'll be taking them back in before I go to bed or if the weather changes, but I don't work tomorrow either, so if the weather is nice, I'll be setting them back out again.

[Emerald]

Smelly pony quarantine!