Clothes, because they are small, are easier to clean than say,
furniture or carpets. First, simply get out all the clothes from the
flood water as soon as you can. If your whole closet was soaked in
water- take out all the clothes out of the closet. Do not just pile all
the clothes on in one corner because this will be some serious cause for
mold growth.
If the washable items are contaminated with mud or
soil, rinse off the material as thoroughly as possible with a hose
before washing. Items that are mud-covered may overwhelm the washing
machine’s drainage system. The last thing you want is a washing-machine
overflow. If the soil in the flood waters is high in iron content,
chlorine bleach can cause rust spots to appear on clothing. Separate
treatment will be needed to remove the rust stains.
If your
clothes have been soaked for a long time, inspect every piece of garment
so that you’ll know which ones you should get rid of and which ones you
must perform water damage restoration. If there are clothes that have
already developed bad mold and there seems no way to get rid of the mold
and odor, simply get rid of them. This should apply easily for cheap
items of clothing. You are better off losing a $4 shirt than stressing
about getting the mold out of that cheap shirt.
If you have no
time to do complete water damage restoration because of all the flurry
of activities in your home trying to get things in order, just make sure
that all the clothes that are wet but not visibly dirty dry out in the
sun. This will prevent molds from developing. Your priority is still to
be able to wash everything as soon as possible but if you can’t make
sure to hang your clothes out to dry.
If you do have time to wash
them, separate whites from colors. Once you have sorted out the clothes
that you need to wash- do not just dump each wash load into the washer
especially if they are still all muddy. The last thing you need is a
broken washing machine after a flood. Try to get as much dirt out as
possible and do wring the water out before you put them inside the
washing machine.
Your regular detergent may not be enough to clean
the water damage on your clothes. Use bleach with a little bit of lemon
on your white clothes to clean and disinfect them. Understand that for
water damage restoration for clothes there are some pieces that you will
need to wash more than once to get its old look back.
For more helpful tips and ideas
, check out our main page here: