Dr. Phibes

Tuesday night lightning struck a gas line in the attic of my roommate's house, which set the house on fire. Luckily, we got out very quickly and the location of the hole in the gas line pointed towards the outside of the house so the flames mostly stayed contained to that one corner of the house. Unfortunately it took long enough to put out that it was still a bad enough fire to destroy the house enough to where they pretty much need to level the house and rebuild it.

I'm a lucky bastard because the fire was stopped right before it got to my room, and I'm pretty much just out an 8 year old desktop computer that hadn't been used in a couple years, a PS3, and tragically my Insignia region free Blu-ray player.

Because I'm a procrastinating idiot I never got around to adding renter's insurance to my car insurance policy so I get no help moving or cleaning my stuff. I've moved all of my stuff into a storage unit, but everything smells a bit smokey. The guy doing my roommate's cleaning said I could rent an Ozone Generator and just let it run in the storage unit for a day and it would remove the smell completely.

Now I doubt the storage people would let me plug a machine in and run it at all, and certainly not for 24 hours, but when we get temporary housing in a day or two I was going to rent the machine for about $100 for a couple days and just run it in my room with all of my DVDs, Blu-rays and electronic stuff. I just wanted to check here and see if anyone has done this before. I know what the Ozone Generator does, but I'm not quite sure how it does what it does - is this safe to use on movie collections and electronics? Or does anyone have any other suggestions? I've read suggestions to replace the cases but I have thousands of movies, I'd go broke trying to replace all of those cases.

PileOfFudge

I just bought an Ozone Generator per the recommendation of my doctor to help combat allergies. It's been running in my living area nearly every day 24/7 for three months and I haven't had any issues at all. I did make a point to ask my doctor before purchasing one if these machines would have any effect on plastic and electronic items like my computer, DVDs, TV, etc. He replied that the gas released by the generator has absolutely no effect on material objects and that he has used ozone generators in his house in Florida for close to thirty years and has never had any issues. However, on certain settings they are not safe for use if you have pets or plants in your living area. Just curious though-why were there suggestions to replace the cases??

Dr. Phibes

Thanks for the reply, I'm trying the cheapskate method first, some kind of odor absorbent gel thing that got really good reviews for removing pet and smoke smells. If that fails I'll probably pick up an Ozone Generator and give it a shot when I get moved from this hotel to a proper living space.

I'm not sure about the replacing cases thing, the last smoke related DVD thread I found here was from 2006 and one of the people on there said they put the art and discs in new cases and that got rid of the smell.

Boba Fett

I thought ozone generators around people actively in the room was dangerous?
http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/ozonegen.html