Okay - so we got over 9" of rain in the last 24 hours. Roads washed out everywhere and lots underwater. Not good at all! We were lucky and only have to deal with water in the basement. That is not good, because it's a finished basement and has always been very dry. But I don't think we've had this amount of rain in such a short time - ever! Anybody have any great ideas to clean the water out of the carpeting? We are using a dehumidifier and fans, but were thinking of picking up a carpet cleaner and putting it on extract. Are there any others ideas we can try? I'm rather frustrated, I have boxes and boxes of my teaching stuff (books mostly) in one of the rooms and the bottom stuff is probably ruined (I've got quite a bit of money into it). Urg! I planned much better things to do this weekAny ideas would be greatly appreciated!
You can always rent a carpet shampooer if you have a fred meyers or a walmart near you.... Sometimes other stores have them to. Just set it to extract and you will probably have to go over it quit a few times. run the fans and dehumidifier for a few days and you should be ok. depends on how much water is down there and how long it has been there before clean up. also how big of a room.....
I had a basement flood about 10 years ago where i lived and it took us 2 days to clean it out but the water was almost up to our knees.... flooded from a creek nearby that got blocked by a log during a bad storm. It was just 1 big open room..... and was a finished basement to. We had to use a 3 sump pumps to drain it then we used 4 carpet cleaners (the neighbors helped us) and we did that for 2 days off and on until the last time we used a high traffic shampoo I think and cleaned it. I bought a huge 4 gallon dehumidifier and had 4-5 box fans going. I think I used the fans for a week and the dehumidifier we used for a couple months until summer really dried out and we quit getting water in it. we had to repaint but everything else seemed ok. Even the drywall survived, it wasn't new looking but you could hardly tell where the water line was. The carpet was stained in a few areas from the mud that seeped in and was never as clean but we never had issues with mold or anything..... And I am in the pacific NW and get mold all the time without a flood! The thing you also will want to address to is where the water came from. Ours we knew was from a whole creek being redirected our way and there was no way to stop it as it came in through a window broken by debree we think, but it would have been worse if the house hadn't been so well constructed for weather proofing....... Did the water seep in or run in through a window? Did it come in around the edge of the window or through a door? Things to think about in case it ever happens again.... Better to be prepared! Wish you the best!
