House floods harm carpets and other household items such as document, papers, flood, and furniture. A carpet helps protect the floor tiles of our homes from damages. They also provide cushion and prevents cracks from forming on floor from use. So how does one fix things when your house carpet and other possessions like personal documents get soaked and damaged by a flood and mold growth?

The Problem:

Regardless how it encountered water, household items have problems that result in damage. These damages not only affect the items and their surrounding (example : a wet carpet can damage the floor underneath) but they can affect your health and well-being. One of these problems comes in the form of organic decay.

Organic decay is brought about by the particles and other materials trapped within the items.. In wet carpets, these particles and materials undergo breakdown after they have been left standing in a moist environment. During this breakdown, these particles could emit various gases such as methane that could be harmful to our health. Documents also have this issue as the organic particles that you find in carpet can also go airborne land on our papers and documents.

The document and carpet fibers can also become weakened and deteriorate. That alone gives a musty odor to your room. Aside from fiber deterioration, improperly handled documents can also shrink and may not be able to be stretched back into place.

Improperly dried wet carpet can also leads to heavy soiling. Whether the water that has damaged your carpet is white, gray or black, the flood waters still bring with it loose soil particles and other dirt. If documents are already floating in the water then the passing back and forth of the various bacteria and mold spores is constant.

If your carpet is glued to the floor, delaminating of the adhesive can occur. The best solution for this is to blot out as much water as soon as possible.

The biggest problem that one encounters with a wet carpet during the document restoration process is indeed the presence of mold and other bacteria and fungi as I mentioned above. Drying them may not be enough to take out the molds and fungi. In addition, these items are hard to detect. Steam cleaning would not work either, as this would leave your carpet and documents moist and make them excellent breeding grounds for mold. Aside from causing considerable harm to your items, mold is a leading cause of household health problems. A large risk for you and your family.

The Solution:

The first rule in carpet mold removal and document restoration is to refrain from doing the job on your own. Improper procedures can cause more damage since the structural integrity of the items has already been compromised by the flooding. Call an experienced professional who will help you decide what to do with your problem.

If only a portion of your carpet has been compromised, you can either cut out the wet part or dry it out by using absorbent paper. Blot out the wet part, do not rub! If a large part is involved, water can be removed with the use of vacuum. However, care should be taken as this could lead to electrical shock. In the case of paper do not use the vacuum.

Once the water has been removed, sanitize those items with fungicides, and some sort of odor remover. Baking soda has been proven helpful in removing musty odors

Make sure that there is dry air circulating to minimize or prevent the growth of mold. Industrial fans can also be used to hasten the drying.

Although there is a big chance that you can restore the whole wet carpet, it would still be far more practical and safer for you to replace it. For items made of paper it all depends on if you need the document itself or the information contained on it. Those two items will cause you to make the right decision on how to proceed.

Remember, what you save by restoring a carpet or a document may, in the long run, be more or less expensive then direct replacement. Consider your options.