Used white vinegar to clean shoes and now shoes smell of... white vinegar

[flossyragdoll]

After a quick Google, I used a slightly damp warm cloth sprayed with white vinegar to clean white fluffy mould off shoes that had been stored under the bed for an ungodly amount of time a while.

The mould is gone and the shoes are now completely dry, but oh lord, the smell! The mould was inside and outside the shoes, so I cleaned both, and the smell seems to have sunk into the insoles (not the removable kind), some of which are leather, others I'm not sure.

Have I effed up here? If the vinegar smell is now in the fibres of the shoes am I stuck with vinegary feet? It's been a day and a half...

Any suggestions welcome 😩

Sprinkle some bicarb in them. Or odour eaters.

In your shoes (hah!) I would bin them. In fact I literally would not be in your shoes. Sorry OP.

I would bin mouldy shoes. You can't be sure you've eliminated all the mould spores.

The shoes involved include all of my boots, work shoes and going out shoes so several hundred pounds worth... not able to replace so looking to save them if possible.

Have you looked into a claim on your house insurance?

If they have been under the bed for so long as to develop mould inside and out, whatever the value, these are shoes that you aren't wearing regularly and probably don't need.

Like others said, if you have white fluffy mould this is spore territority and you are better off chucking them out for health reasons and learning a lesson about looking after stuff more carefully if it has a real financial value to you.

To reiterate, I'm specifically looking for suggestions on how to remove the vinegar smell (will try the bicarb, thanks). I'm trying to avoid throwing the shoes out as I can't afford to replace them and I have a nightmare finding shoes that fit comfortably (weird feet). They only haven't been worn recently because I've had an unusual year - instead of going out to work I've been caring for someone who is housebound in their home, but this is an anomaly not the norm. I've already hugely pared down my clothes/shoes so these aren't 'extras' I never wear.

I live in a house prone to condensation and mould can flare up quickly. I run a large dehumidifier and do as much as I can to create airflow (windows open in the morning/all day unless it's damp/very cold out), small space dehumidifiers in/under furniture, hanging dehumidifiers in wardrobes, lots of hoovering, no materials that hold moisture like wicker or jute. I thought I'd cracked it with the under-bed shoe storage as had put small space dehumidifiers (moisture absorbers) in with the shoes, but I forgot to change them this year and here we are.

Put them in the sun.

Fresh air and sunshine. The UV will work wonders. Also, bicarb.

Sunshine then polish

Will sprinkle in bicarb and put out in sun… when it’s next kind enough to make an appearance 🌞

Oh OP I didn't realise it was so many pairs of shoes, definitely sunshine and bicarb. Putting shoes in the freezer (in a bag) helps gets rid of foot odour, might be worth a try (one pair at a time!)
I suppose moving is out of the question...

Changing the subject slightly, I knew someone who, years ago, had a temporary job in the office for the people who marketed "odour eating" insoles. There was a huge bottle of cheap perfume in the desk drawer and she wondered what it was for. She found out when the post came in - disgruntled customers returned the insoles because they failed to work. And the only thing that cleared the putrid air in the office was a generous squirting around of said cheap perfume. She also had to deal with post from people who had used a cumulative hair dye to gently colour in greys. Of course, like all dyes, the results depend on what you might have done to your hair before using it. Cue pictures of green hair etc. She was rather disappointed when the assignment ended!