<p>As you can imagine, LSU has put a lot of thought into how to clean a flood-damaged home. Bleach works well for mold if the surface is clean. (Somehow dirt can use up the disinfecting capability of the bleach).</p>
<p>One way you can tell if your significant other REALLY loves you, is if you can go up to him five or six times a day wearing your mold abatement mask and hiss, “Luke, I am your father”–and he still smiles every time. Forget the kiss; that’s where it is.</p>
<p>I don’t know anything about floods but just wanted to lend a hug and a word of encouragement from one northeastern Pennsylvanian to another! Just take it one day at a time and know that in a couple of months you’ll be sitting pretty in a dry redone house. Hope you are staying warm too!</p>
<p>Advice for the future. If you have negatives store them in a safe deposit box, so that even if you lose your pictures you can reprint from negatives. We back up our digital pictures on CDs, but realized recently that the CDs should probably be stored in the box too.</p>
<p>So sorry about the flooding. My parents’ basement flooded last summer - there were a few things that were ruined that still upset me a year later.</p>
<p>May 5, 2003 – We awoke to a strange sound in the house. What is that sound? WHAT IS THAT SOUND?!!</p>
<p>It was the sound of water cascading down the chandelier in our two-story foyer and splashing onto the wood floor.</p>
<p>August ?, 2003 – (Before the repairs from the first storm are finished) Two front windows are blown in during a rainstorm. More damage in additional rooms.</p>
<p>Sage advice?</p>
<p>Get the name and number of every workman who promises he’ll “be back on Thursday.” Call on Wednesday morning and ask what time he thinks he will arrive on Thursday. Workman around here have a terrible habit of not showing up and not calling.</p>
<p>Take pictures and pretend you’re going to make a scrapbook. You probably won’t but it helps you think about everything differently.</p>
<p>Remind yourself that you can still live in your house. Can you imagine if you had to leave it for 6 months or more?</p>
<p>Feel free to vent here. We’ll support you. :-)</p>
<p>When we redid carpet in some rooms in office, we used contrasting border. If insurance company won’t pay to redo whole area, would a border or molding work?</p>
<p>Wow, PA Mom that stinks. Am so sorry you have to go through it, but glad you saved the family photos and didn’t get electrocuted!</p>
<p>My tips probably aren’t very helpful for 6+" of water, but my brother’s friend finished our basment for us and did a few things that seemed sort of smart (of course our basement never flooded until AFTER it was finished)–</p>
<p>He set the sheetrock up a couple inches off the floor, behind the trim, so it wouldn’t get wet if there was minor rain-induced flooding.</p>
<p>He used mildew resistant sheetrock (hopefully it’s not treated with some deadly off-gassing chemical)</p>
<p>We put down a cheap but decent rustic tile floor, and cleared out probably 40 years of dirt, cement, and gunk out of the floor drain.</p>
<p>After our minor flood, I had to replace the baseboard trim. It’s a lot easier to stain and polyurethane the long uncut pieces of trim BEFORE it’s cut and nailed into place.</p>
<p>And- I second and third the suggestions for leaving fans running on low to help speed the drying process.</p>
<p>Oh-- and had to add our own ‘worst’ flood story–
One night years ago I walked into the bathroom or our old apartment to find all the upstairs neighbors’ waste water (ALL kinds of waste water) flooding down into our bathroom… Awful.</p>
<p>Yuck - that does make me feel better. At least ours was clean water LOL
Thanks for the hugs B - I needed them yesterday!
Thanks for all of the great suggestions from everyone.
We did spend yesterday just going through a lot of stuff that had been submerged. We were turning things on to see if they still worked or should be tossed. The good news is the big screen t.v. did work, most of the things that did not were small easy to replace items.
We got to a cedar trunk that was way behind the furniture they had stacked up and realized it was still full of my husband and my record albums from high school ( remember those vinyl treasures? ). We fully expected to open it up to a soggy mess of album covers and mold, but when we opened it we were surprised to see they were all undamaged. There was a blanket on the bottom which had absorbed some moisture but that was it. It was kind of funny - they aren’t worth anything, but they do hold a lot of memories, so we both got a big grin when we found them unscathed.
They put a pod in our driveway to store items until they get the drywall put back up, so I guess we’ll be taking stuff out to the pod today.
Anybody have info on whether leather furniture dries out well or is a high mildew risk? We had a whole set of leather furniture in the basement and it got soaked from the bottom and from the top ( ceiling dripping). The water removal guys told me that the leather is a breeding ground for mildew/mold and that it already had some starting on the outside. They were concerned with it growing on the inside because it had soaked through. I have no idea, but the insurance company did give us the go-ahead to replace it. It is very comfy though and I don’t like to be wasteful and throw out good stuff. On the other hand , we all have allergies and the girls have a little asthma, so laying on mildewy furniture won’t work LOL</p>
<p>Just put down hardwood and you won’t have to worry about the dye lots of the carpet. The one thing I would advise, after having mold removal done and being out of the house for 6 months, is to make sure you supervise the workers closely. Make sure to communicate clearly what you want. And I know this this hard to do, because you are still in shock, and upset about what happened, and suffering over the loss, but start thinking about how wonderful everything will look after you are done. Set your goal, go out and pick flooring, and cabinets, etc. The more you avoid that, and stare at the mess, the more depressed you will become. I know. But taking action and saying “This will not get me down,” really works. Don’t wait to at least start looking at cabinets - just shopping for them can boost your mood. You start envisioning the beautiful new kitchen, and the neat things you will be able to do, and suddenly your mood goes up.</p>
<p>A note of caution (like you need more): When you hire a contractor, make sure the permitting process is completed. When a job is not properly completed and the permit is expired, insurance will not cover any further damages to that area. Insurance clearly states that if you have any part of your home that’s faulty or defective due to poor workmanship, and or design or application, they can actually not pay that portion of the claim. Check with your local permitting and licensing websites. Hundreds of families in my area were effected by this following Hurricane Charly. I completely sympathize with your situation. We spent many hot days and nights without electric in back to back summers while the national guard ran our community.
Things will return to normal and you will appreciate it that much more.</p>
<p>You’re right about that. I felt bad about throwing out “perfectly good” furniture, but yesterday after a whole week after the incident the furniture was still soaked inside. They tried to move it out and it was dripping water. Guess that settled that!</p>
<p>you’re investing in some intelligent networking to solve serious challenges. Sometimes the best thing to do in a crisis is to sit back and research the problem instead of jumping in feet first…</p>
<p>Course, it’s hard enough to just remodel when it’s voluntary and on your own schedule but to have to make all the decisions right now, because of an emergency: UGH! My heart goes out to you, and best of luck.</p>