USVI-On-Line

For the first time since we've lived in our house (14 years) we awoke to 2" of water in our basement. It's partially finished and I would like to save the carpeting if at all possible. Does anyone know of a product that you can apply to carpeting that will prevent mold/mildew (besides bleach)from forming?

Thanks!

You might try calling one of those Mobile Steam Cleaning companies - they may be able to vacuum, steam, and treat it and save it?

Following a faulty clean water valve leak we had a hallway plus a couple rooms of carpet saturated. My husband used the shop vac on the water and a carpet cleaning business was sent by our insurance. They pulled the carpet loose at the walls so very large industrial fans could be placed underneath it. It took several days of running these plus air conditioning to dry the carpet and pad completely. Then the carpet was reinstalled and steam cleaned; it looked, felt and smelled fine. This was over twenty years ago; some newer process may exist now. Getting the moisture out as quickly as possible was the key.
Good luck!

Katie, sorry to hear about your water problems. It seems RI got hit particularly hard with this storm.

I second calling a company but I think to start, if you can pull the rug up and get some really strong fans to keep air circulating you can at least start to dry things out and hold off mold and mildew.

Sorry to hear. We've had water damage twice. Once
was a catstrophic loss...burst pipes in ceiling of our house...damage was over 30K. Not much could be salvaged. The second time was a furance failure. Sorry to say, there was nothing that could be done to save the carpeting in either. We had to remove it...dry everything out and were told by the restoration company (who handled both our nightmares) that the only thing that guarantees no mold and mildew is bleach. Same information from the commerical cleaners also. In the first loss we lost all our drywall also as it soaks up water like a sponge. In the second loss we only lost a few inches all the way around. It was cut out and replaced along with new trim. Both times we used huge commerical grade fans and dehumifiers. High electric bills resulted. I'd make the calls to the cleaners right away as resources in your area are probably stretched thin. Good luck.

Thanks all. Yes, resources are stretched thin here in RI and there are so many who have it worse than we do. Hubby has convinced me that we should let the carpet go - it's not worth saving. Funny - usually he's the frugal one.

Katie, sorry about your house--RI really got hit bad! I understand that 95 is still closed!
I think you got some good advice here--
and i also think that losing the carpet is what you need to do--once you get involved with a mold problem things can go from just bad to worse pretty quickly and it's probably just better to play it safe.
I hope you dry out soon!!!

Here's how it looked in our neck of the woods yesterday. I have never seen anything like this, and that includes the two hurricanes I have seen (Gloria and Bob). This street is just absolutely devastated today. The waters have receded for the most part, but it left behind bridges completely washed away, businesses ruined (you'll see the Old Mystic General Store in the vid - it was completely flooded and I'm sure their inventory is gone). We walked down this street tonight, and much of the road is washed away, chain link fences are completely destroyed. It's just a crazy mess around here.

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oh my that's awful. I'm sorry for people in that area.

In the video, is that the Mystic river overflowing? It is a very rapid flow; I understand why there is damage. It is sad situation, and I am sorry for all the heartache for all of you facing cleanup and repairs from the rain.

lprof wrote:In the video, is that the Mystic river overflowing? It is a very rapid flow; I understand why there is damage. It is sad situation, and I am sorry for all the heartache for all of you facing cleanup and repairs from the rain.

Yes Iprof, that is the head of the Mystic River. It moves pretty good through there during normal times, but at that point, the river is only about 25 feet wide, if that. There is also a pond on the other side that you can't see in the video that overflowed and contributed to the flooding. I took some video last night of the damage, and if I can figure out how to transfer to my laptop, I will post.

At 1:17 of the video, you see a bridge (well, the railing of the bridge). The river flows under that bridge, like I said, at about 20 feet wide. So you can see how it overflowed into the streets of the village. Crazy.