OK all you BrickLinkers, admit it, you have purchased some Lego from someone, and they arrive, and you open the package to be greeted by a really bad smell. Usually its tobacco aroma, but sometimes, who knows what that is!

I find that only the sellers that don't smoke say so, and the ones that do, don't see anything wrong with it. But...oh.. it can be pretty bad. I got an order yesterday, and even the post box smelled. I opened the package and whew, I had to open a window. It was a mixture of smells, tobacco smoke and maybe some sort of cleaner smell...

Well, I took all the parts and put them in a sink full of water and some mild soap and let them soak. By the end of the day, they didn't smell anymore, I got lucky.

Anybody else have any stories to tell?

I bought a random box once that smelt of old wet dog. Left it to air ot for a day or two then washed it. Good as newish second hand nibbled lego go.

I don't think I've ever had a smelly BrickLink order. My cat peed in the 1000 Basic Brick set and left a smelly scent. I washed them but every now and then I find a brick with urine crust inside. I probably could garage sell them really really cheap.

Yuck, dog smell would be bad. Airing out does help, for sure.

Up till now, I have not had too much trouble with smells and dirt. Some parts that are used have arrived with sticky stuff, but I have been able to clean it off. Sticker residue can be hard to clean, but its doable.

I really try to stick to new parts, but you can't help it when some parts are only available as used.

We had a party at home with 5 kids coming so I decided to order a big lot of Duplos so they wouldn't play with my stuff ... Anyway, I go on BL and find a seller who was selling cheap Duplos, order them and receive then. I think he'd been smoking near them for like 20 years, the smell was horrible. My partner told me to just throw them away. I had to wash them 2 times in the dish washer and let them in bleash for a hold day to take of the smell. At least they where clean for the kids :-)

I recently ordered a set that was supposedly as close to new as you can get without a box.

I'm slowly building it now, and the smell is like traditional German food. It's a smell I haven't smelled in a long time and on food it'd be ok but it's also kind of gross on bricks and an instruction booklet.

So far, so good, I have not yet received a box of smelly LEGO, but it could be just a matter of time.

I guess I'll just hold my breath an submerge them in warm soapy water, soak then air them out.

Andy D

A close friend of mine gave me his and his brothers/sisters collection of LEGO from their childhood. His parents old house was pretty run down, had had a lot of pets, mostly cats, through the years and had a pretty pungent smell. Inevitably the parts had picked up the musty smell of the home. I had to soak them in a mix of a little dawn and car wash for a day or so, but it worked out.

I've also have had a few ebay sets arrive with a noticeable odor either from a house of many pets or someone who smokes in house. Regardless of their smell, or even if there was one, I still always wash them in dawn and car wash. Dawn for disinfect and car wash because it's seems it's a good choice for plastics (think bare car bumpers, mirrors, etc). None of my second hand LEGO sets or parts have an odor any longer

I had to wash them 2 times in the dish washer and let them in bleash for a hold day to take of the smell.

You'll find on here that bleach is not recommended for LEGO. It can, and most likely will, make your bricks brittle and more prone to split when building

Great post, just received a pckge that smells awful, ie smoke/tobacco. Someone else posted in the feedback of the seller that their pckge also smelled of smoke and sellers response was wood stove?! Wtf

Gonna have to wash and soak this ish for like a wk at least. And cosine on the fact that sometimes you have no choice when the parts are super rare, and only few sellers have it in the quantity you need and are only available used.

Still all in all, I would say this is an anomaly, as most bl sellers pckge nicely, and I have never detected a whiff of feline urine or human haha, at least i hope...

I have had pretty good luck in terms of parts smelling bad. That is, up until last week when I ordered a "new" set off of eBay. The seller claimed the box was unopened and in "pristine" condition. When I got it it was wrapped in brown paper and had three cut boxes taped together around the Lego box. The actual Lego box had the tape cut and had a piece of packing tape applied long ways holding the box flap down. That wasn't even the worst part.

The smell of the package was absolutely horrendous. It reeked like cigarettes and had a really bad musky smell to it. All of the pieces smelt like this too, even in their sealed bags. After opening them and letting them sit out a few days the smell seemed to go away on it's own, but I was not happy.

Edited May 13, 20159 yr by Deathleech

This sound like a job for fabric softener, dryer sheets specifically.

Edited May 13, 20159 yr by Boxerlego

Only once do I recall a smoke smell, that was an eBay set. Stank. Took me back to the 80s when every building smelled of cigarettes.

I once received a set that had plasticine (modelling clay?) stuck in the brick/plate holes. It didn't smell, but it was pretty grotty!

I recently ordered a set that was supposedly as close to new as you can get without a box.

I'm slowly building it now, and the smell is like traditional German food. It's a smell I haven't smelled in a long time and on food it'd be ok but it's also kind of gross on bricks and an instruction booklet.

Yea, food smells are good for food, but not much else.

No smells, - yet. - But I do always find hair in my BL orders. And sometimes, they're just generally 'greasy'. Every order that I open, my cat usually inspects the smell emanating from the package. He must've smelled most all of the US states, and several European countries, by now. Without ever having left the house.

I bought some 47397 and 47398 12 x 3 wedge plates once for a plane I was working on. When they arrived not only were they smelly, they were dirty. I don't know what was on them but it was sort of like dead skins cells. I work for a PC repair place that gets notebooks mailed in all the time and I often see where heaps of dead skin cells have come out from the keyboard all over the screen when they were upside down. It was like that, like really fine, flat, but soft, beach sand. I had to wash all the parts. Never going back to that store.

Edited May 13, 20159 yr by Naijel

I only once had this bad experience on Bricklink. I wish I had seen the seller feedbacks before as it had been mentioned several times in his feedbacks. However whenever a buyer left a negative feedback, he left a negative one in turn. I feel like a coward not having left a negative to forewarn new buyers.

I had a case of smelly parts from BL. It had strong smoke smell and I had to soak and clean them twice to make smell disappear. Rubber parts seem not to be affected by cleaning three times and smelled anyway. I told seller about that I'm really not happy about that just to receive a message they probably had a bbq near the storing area... And seller was like "if this is a issue at all?" Seller was kind of rude, not customer focused, so ended returning my order back for full refund and getting stop listed by seller.

Another case was with a used set, which had a storage room smell. But that was gone when parts I've washed the bricks.

So what is the recommended/preferred way to get rid of smelly/smoky lego?

Soak in a bucket of soap water for 24 hours? Dishwashing detergent? Will this cause color fading/bleeding of the bricks?

Any help appreciated, thanks

Bucket o' warm soapy water ought to do it, perhaps with something gently agitating it so the bricks move about somewhat. Sounds like a project to build in of itself, but I haven't got any parts that need to be washed in such a manner that I'm aware of...

Clutch, thanks a bunch

Never thought I would be cleaning Lego before building haha, but you live and you learn.

There's no way I could build without the smoke giving me a massive headache, and I even had to put the package outside of my room despite resealing it because it stunk so badly...

I got an ebay order once that was pretty strong smelling of cigarettes. I put them in hot water with dish soap and swirled them in it for about five minutes, let soak for about a half hour (until the water wasn't hot anymore), rinsed, and repeated that process two more times. After shaking the excess water off/out, I left them to air dry overnight, and they were just fine.

This also happened with a ship hull, but the soaking didn't work. I had to take out the screws that hold the top and bottom together. When I pulled the pieces apart, it was like it belched out nasty smoky air, even after all the soaking. I had to scrub the interior sides pretty hard to get the smell out, then soak, then air dry disassembled for several days until I couldn't detect the smell anymore.

Edited May 13, 20159 yr by rodiziorobs

Dirty, yes.

Hairy, yes.

Smelly, no.

I've had a few orders off BL and eBay that have had tobacco smells to it. The first time I used a mesh bag, top rack of the dishwasher to get the smell out, it worked great but that also stripped the copper paint off of a couple of minifig helmets. Since then I've usually just gone with soaking in a washbasin with dish soap a few times to get smells out.

I had a BL order that smelt really badly. I have an exceptionally accute sense of smell, so the odour would probably not have been detectable by most people. But to me, it reeked of cigarette smoke.

I washed the parts in warm, soapy water, rinsed, dried by shaking the excess water off, dabbed them with kleenexes and air dried them overnight. Next day they were odourless.

Edited May 14, 20159 yr by AmperZand

Yea, food smells are good for food, but not much else.

There's only one time I think I've been ok with a serious food smell on something-- I like Persian poetry, so this lovely lady from Iran was sending me books, they had this great spicy smell that was oddly comforting. But building a modular and smelling wurst? Not good. Though like your cat, maybe my dogs are really digging the European flare.

I guess my LEGO would probably smell like something between a scented candle and wood.