[Milsurplus] Paper Mold

[Hue Miller]

Dave, live and learn, eh? I learned. My flooding came from the 
other direction. I learned that cardboard boxes aren't the
answer to storage. Those large plastic "tote boxes" are much
better; pretty rugged, too.
I took one expendable-type book and microwaved it, with pretty
satisfactory results. However, as with any cooking, there's a 
definite skill factor involved, and a learning curve, so this isn't
the most practical way. After that, I read about putting them
in the freezer for a while. The deep freeze supposedly kills the
spores. I have one 1930s book, I bought, with suspicious 
dark powdery material on some page edges. At first I thought,
treat it with some damp sponge and a solution of bleach.
However, that might be destructive to the paper, and the
printing. Right now this book is getting a chill out in the
refrigerator freezer. 
I often think how nice it would be to live somewhere where
you don't have to think about rust and mold. However 
people tell me about dust in the air in some of those desert
areas. -Hue Miller