I'm gonna put headphones on and enjoy a mellow late night music session
drinking half a bottle of Talisker left over from this time last week.
So I'd better ask this question now while I'm still coherrrant..

Earlier today I remembered to get a bass guitar out of storage to check the batteries for its pickups.
Its been a few years since I last got it out to play.
Batteries hadn't leaked, but there was an unexpected unpleasant surprise !!!
The old PVC foam padded gig bag has 'decomposed' in storage
and resulted in the entire guitar being coated in a sticky adhesive like
residue and crumbled foam particles.

Its a solid body guitar manufactured about 20 - 25 years ago
laquered in what I guess is a standard hard gloss polyurethane type finish.
The back of the rosewood neck also has the same gloss finish..

So, would the simplest effective cleaning option be a cotton hanky
dampened with warm water,
or will I need some kind of spirit to remove the sticky goo..
I've got a can of lighter fuel in my tool kit ?
Apparently The strings would benefit from an overnight soaking in methylated spirits.
If I buy a bottle, would that be any safer to use to remove the sticky residue
from the gloss finish.

I'd presume spirits are the best cleaner for metal parts like machine heads..
but what about the plastic pickup covers.

Seriously, I still can't believe what a mess this guitar is in.
When I think about it now, foam does decay over many years..
but I'd never have considered it to be such a problem
Old HiFi speaker foam baffles usually just crumble in to dry dust,
not his gluey gunk ???