Nice. Is everything working alright?
No idea, can’t get at any of my gear or cables to test it until my wife finishes working in the office.
It turns on.
There’s been a proper spillage or two though, some of the knobs really didn’t want to come off. Sticky.
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Shut yourself in a closet with it and chain smoke a couple packs. Perfume smell gone!
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I think someone had been doing that with my Polivoks before they sold it to me. It’s even gone a lovely shade of nicotine yellow.
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I feel like if I ever bought a Polivocks, that is how I would expect it to arrive. Well-seasoned, a little gnarly, and has maybe been more places than me.
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Everything works fine as long as you don’t touch any of it. Pretty much every knob and slider crackles and about half the sliders cut out completely at various points in their travel.
Bit of deoxit should do the trick.
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The story of the Virus Snow I bought, the ad picture (was way worse and dirtier when received, but I forgot to take a picture as I was in a hurry to clean it up 
):
After cleaning everything with alcohol, I completely tore it down to give the yellow buttons the “retro bright” treatment:
After a few hours of treatment, everything is ready to be put in place again:
As you can see, the button color is much better:
And the final result:
The retrobright did not do much on the knobs so they’re still a bit yellowish, but it looks better than initially anyways.
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That’s a nice restore job. Well done!
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“Needs work.” 
I think GG Allin may have owned this thing at some point.
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This person also has a similarly disgusting Oberheim DX for sale.
Aww man, so sad to see classics in distress. Does he live in a working windmill?
You lot dont want to see my MS20. Precious flowers arent you?
Ive got a Roland VK 09 that would give you nightmares.
Haha. I traded cameras with someone once, it took years for the perfume smell to wear off. Pretty hard to avoid whilst having my nose smooshed up against it.
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I always make the small amount of effort required to clean stuff before I list it for sale. A simple wipe down with some kind of solvent is usually more than enough and takes a couple of minutes, if that.
The number of bits of gear I’ve bought that arrive dusty, or covered with some kind of unidentifiable grime or obvious sticky liquid spills is absurd.
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In my experience, baking soda (in German: Natriumbikarbonat, eg Kaiser Natron) is quite good at absorbing all kinds of odors. I would leave the gear in a closed bag with a generous portium of this product for a couple of days.
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Coming from a guitar forum, I am disturbed about you lot wiping away all that mojo.
Joking aside I bought a tube based guitar pedal for cheap online once. Box smelled a bit funny, but pedal seemed ok until it got warm. Hmm warm vomit.
I got so cheesed off trying to clean it off that I tried the nuclear solution - duster spray with the bottle inverted. Yep, neat dry ice. Zap. Smell gone.
I remembereld after that stink is often bacteria (cig smell might not be), so if you’re prepared to risk damage and no other choice exists, nuke those germs.
Just came across an interesting Craigslist post— someone selling a huge pile of gear for $1800 that includes a Machinedrum, Analog Four, XoxBox, some Eurorack, lots of other stuff. There’s a layer of dirt/dust on a lot of these guys (hence posting here) but it’s probably an awesome deal for whoever will put in the time to clean them up.
FWIW, Modesto is deep in California’s Central Valley - the even hotter, dustier part of CA. The dust may be just that, or it could include a mix of ash from the numerous wildfires over the years.
From SF, Modesto is 2-3 hours by car or transit, but driving is probably the preferred way to get there. ~8 hours from LA, ~4 hours from Reno.
I would probably bring a soft brush with me to see if what the gear looks like under the dust. I’d also take a close look at any connectors and jacks.
I agree it is probably a fantastic deal that could easily double in value with a bit of elbow grease and very carefully selected and applied cleaners. Could also be a fun roadtrip with a friend, but watch the weather. All of California is a desert and flat areas can rapidly turn into flash floods when it rains.
It would be a challenge to move that much gear via public transit, but with 2-3 friends and one or two suitcases per person and a large stack of old towels it could probably be done. If you have a driver’s license, just rent the smallest UHaul van for $19 + miles (and all the extra fees they add on).
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Just got an emx1 in the mail and the guy coulda atleast wiped it down ! ahaha and had to peel off some vynl in between some pad buttons. But other than that I just sent out two pieces of gear and even took the knobs off to clean underneath it’s just the respectable thing to do then throw em some stickers !