Photo cleaning, not Photoshopping

March 12, 2008 1:20 AM

What is the safest (my health comes first, preserving the photos comes second) way to clean photographs contaminated with cockroach eggs and rat droppings?

A two part question...

Today I got sick of having a 3 car garage that only fits one car. So I pulled everything out and left it in the backyard for later sorting and dumping. In the process, I found old negatives and photos from the 60's to 90's that my parents stored in cardboard boxes. This stuff I'll keep. The negatives are in very good shape within their sleeves. The photographs are in worse shape, being covered in roach eggs and rat droppings. The roach eggs are stuck to the photographs but the rat droppings fall out with a hard shake.

While I'm not squeamish about handling these photos, but I'm wondering about any possible health hazards with handling rat droppings and roach eggs.

So my two questions. What should I used to protect myself from getting sick from the dropping? And what is the best way to clean them off the photographs?

posted by Cog to grab bag (10 comments total)

i used to do animal research, but i'm not a physician.

but the short answer is, to stay safe, wear gloves and wash your hands when you're done!

not sure about the photograph cleaning part, though.
posted by melvinwang at 1:39 AM on March 12, 2008

If you have the all the negatives, maybe you don't need the photographs. Get/rent/borrow a nice negative scanner.
posted by alexei at 1:56 AM on March 12, 2008

Oh Alexei, I forgot to mention that I don't have all the negatives. At first glance, I think there are negatives for only 1/3 of the photos. I plan to scan both the negatives and photos, which is why I need a good method to clean photos. The negatives are not a problem; a nice stack of new negative sleeves should be enough.
posted by Cog at 2:28 AM on March 12, 2008

You could try just soaking them for a few minutes in tepid water with a little wetting agent. I wouldn't recommend anything harsher, especially given the age of the negatives.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 3:11 AM on March 12, 2008

Oh, just to clarify, that was just the negatives. Don't soak the photos...
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 3:56 AM on March 12, 2008

You can soak the photos too. In fact a mild soap solution and gentle wiping with a wet saopy hand will be OK. Then I would set up a tray with distilled water to rinse, and a clothsline with clips or something to hang to dry. You could also dry them fac-up on a towel. Just don't let them touch while drying. OH and I would wear at least a painters mask when handling before cleaning. Airborne mouse feces could carry nasty things.
posted by Gungho at 4:21 AM on March 12, 2008

You might want to wear a face mask to avoid breathing in any rat feces dust, and gloves of course.

I would try shaking off what I could from the photos (into a box, so you don't have eggs and feces flying all over your garage) first, and then wiping them gently with a lint free cloth. I would only try soaking the worst of them if the shaking/wiping didn't work.
posted by sandraregina at 4:36 AM on March 12, 2008

I've used rubbing alchohol to remove fly specks, and it would cut down on the amount of flying debris. I cannot vouch for the solubility of rat feces in alchohol; no experience. You can rewash photos if you need to. But yeah, don't be breathing the dust from rodent droppings, they can carry some nasty stuff.
posted by unrepentanthippie at 6:28 AM on March 12, 2008

You can rinse them in water with a little Photoflo; it's milder than soap. Do a test swatch of whatever first, though.
posted by unrepentanthippie at 6:30 AM on March 12, 2008

It's possible to catch a lot of things via contact with rodent droppings; it looks like at least a dust mask and gloves should be in order. (The linked info is for the United States.)
posted by magicbus at 6:36 AM on March 12, 2008