If you have emergency water damage, it is important to take care of it as soon as possible. Water flooding can ruin everything in your house. It is not just your possessions that you need to worry about when your basement floods. Much more important than anything you might be storing down there is the structure of your house itself. Water flood damage can ruin your walls, your floor, your carpets, and even the structure of your house. Beyond the immediate damage it wreaks, water can cause catastrophic health problems for years to come. I know, because I was once the victim of water damages.
It all started when a pipe burst while we were going out of town, flooding the entire basement. We had very little time to clean up before we left, so we basically mopped up as best we could and set up some dehumidifiers down there. When we came back, things seemed all right. The basement smelled a little bit mildewed, but we figured that we could treat that with some bleach water. We mopped the floors, repainted the water damaged sections of the wall, and called it a day. We didn’t have much in the basement that was ruined, so all in all I thought we were lucky. Than the illnesses started.
Basically, I soon came down with a cough that would not go away. My daughter, meanwhile was getting frequent headaches, and my wife was feeling dizzy and having trouble focusing. It was a long cold winter, and we figured that we were just dealing with seasonal symptoms. As time passed, however it got worse and worse. We didn’t realize that there was mold growth from the water damage. Although the floors and walls looked alright, behind them was a thick layer of toxic mold, slowly affecting our health. As we got sicker and sicker, we were unable to figure out what was wrong with us. In panic, we went to an alternative medicine doctor who diagnosed our problems.
Unfortunately, diagnosing problems and fixing the water damage were two different things. The water damage was so extensive that we needed to do major structural renovation to the house. Our insurance didn’t cover it, so there was no good water damage remediation coming in. Basically, we were on our own with thousands of dollars of expenses. We actually had to live in an apartment for two months while the workmen fix the house. After that hassle, I will never let water sit in my floors or walls again. It is just not worth the health consequences.
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