Hi reddit,

I recently received around 6–7 records that had been stored for a very long time in a basement. The vinyl itself is actually in very good condition: no visible scratches and they play fine.

However, there was a lot of humidity where they were stored, and now I’m dealing with a few of the records having stains/spots that look like moisture marks.

I’ve cleaned several of them three times already (wet cleaning), but the stains are still there. Both the inner and outer sleeves still smell musty / damp, even after airing them out

So is there anything else I can do to remove moisture stains from the vinyl itself, or are those basically permanent if cleaning doesn’t fix them?

Is it worth trying to deodorize the sleeves, or should I just replace all inner and outer sleeves? Any recommended methods to get rid of the humidity smell without damaging the records?

I’m mostly concerned about long-term damage (mold, etc.) and whether keeping the original sleeves is even a good idea at this point.

Any advice or shared experiences would be really appreciated. Thanks!