Home flooding can occur for a variety of reasons, from natural disasters to burst pipes. Whatever the cause, the result is the same: soggy carpeting and upholstery, peeling paint, mildewing fabrics, and often, the appearance of mold. Obviously, the sooner you can dry out your home and belongings, the better—but you can’t only focus on the surface damage. Standing water can also weaken your home’s infrastructure, which is why it’s a good idea to carefully examine structural supports before entering a severely flooded area. Follow certain steps and guidelines after a flood to repair your belongings and restore your home.

List the Damage

If you have homeowner’s insurance that covers water damage or flooding, call your insurance provider to inform them of the flood and file a claim. Photograph the water damage in your home and any items that will require immediate disposal, so that you have adequate records of the things that were damaged beyond repair. Also, make a list of damaged items and their value, including receipts or other documentation, where possible.

Get the Water Out

If the flood is in an area of your home that will not drain naturally, such as a below-ground basement, you need to pump the water out. While you can do this on your own using a wet vacuum or sump pump, it’s often a good idea to call in a water damage restoration company, even for minor flooding. Disaster recovery professionals have the tools and the knowledge to quickly and efficiently dry out your home.

Get Your Belongings Dry

Remove portable belongings to a dry area as soon as possible after the flood, to prevent the development of mold or mildew. The National Flood Insurance Program recommends cleaning and disinfecting soaked-through items with a pine-oil cleaner and bleach, and then monitoring them for fungal and mold growth for several days after they’ve dried. Be particularly vigilant with upholstered furniture and other fabric belongings, as these might still be damp inside for days after the exterior appears dry. Many flood restoration companies offer professional upholstery cleaning, in addition to their other services.

Monitor for Mold

Mold is a frequent aftereffect of home flooding, and most often appears in walls, carpeting, and upholstery that has been persistently damp. Mold is not just unsightly, it’s also hazardous to your health; people living with mold growth can experience allergic reactions ranging from sneezing and coughing to severe breathing problems. Stop mold in its tracks by thoroughly drying and disinfecting the flooded area, and by employing a dehumidifier in areas that remain damp. If you see visible mold growth, contact a mold removal specialist to determine the extent of the problem and to eliminate mold colonies.

Always deal with flood damage promptly and comprehensively. While it can seem expensive to hire a water damage restoration company to assess and deal with the problem, turning the task over to a pro is generally your best bet—especially if your home is insured against flood damage. A disaster recovery specialist knows exactly what to look for, whereas you might miss underlying damage that could become more dangerous and more expensive to fix the longer it goes undetected. You can’t always protect your home and family from disaster, but by being smart in your response to flooding, you can minimize the aftermath.

Penny Jones is a home improvement buff and a senior Internet marketing strategist with the local online advertising company Prospect Genius.

Having carpets in your home creates a sense of warmth and coziness for those who live there. However, over time, the carpets in your house can accumulate significant debris, from allergens to bacteria, that can have a majorly negative impact on the residents. In order to keep your carpets in good condition, and in a healthy state for you and your family, you should get them professionally cleaned on a regular basis. Expert carpet cleaning services can eliminate the harmful particles that can get trapped in your carpets and will keep them looking fresh and spotless for everyone to enjoy.

Carpets are a wonderful addition to any home, whether they’re installed as wall-to-wall floor coverings or they’re stand-alone area rugs. However, due to their nature, carpets tend to trap all kinds of debris deep down in their fibers. These include: grime, dust, pollen, pet dander, bacteria, and dust mites. In small amounts, none of these particulates are majorly harmful to most of the population. However, when they collect over the course of months or years, they can cause a whole range of health issues, from allergic reactions to asthma attacks. For people who suffer from allergies on a regular basis, even trace amounts of an allergen trapped in carpet fibers can cause a serious reaction. The good news is there’s an easy, affordable option that can help you avoid these health issues: professional carpet and rug cleaning.

The regular cleaning that you do at home can get the surface of your carpets clean, removing dirt and debris that is on the very top layer. However, even a good vacuum cleaner is not able to reach down into the carpet fibers to remove the various allergens and particulates that can collect on that deep level. A professional carpet and floor cleaning company can get down there, though. By applying a carpet-specific cleaning agent, then using pressurized hot water, followed by a high-powered extraction process, these experts can get deep into your carpets to break up and remove virtually any particles or debris that have collected there. Because the final step of the cleaning process is the extraction, your carpets will be left almost dry by the time the cleaning company is done. This means that there’s no danger of mold or mildew growth following the hot water treatment. Not only will this process leave your carpets clean and healthy, but they’ll look great as well!

Professional carpet cleaning is an important maintenance step that every homeowner should undertake on at least a yearly basis. By removing accumulated dirt and allergens, regular carpet cleaning serves to safeguard your and your family’s health and comfort.

For many two-income households, the
demands of careers and parenting make it necessary to hire a housekeeper or
maid service. Although there are many dependable house cleaning services
available, being aware of some basic guidelines will increase the chances of
selecting a housekeeper you’ll be satisfied with. A personal referral from
someone you know and trust is the ideal way to find a reliable housekeeping
service, but sometimes it’s necessary to do all of the research and comparison
shopping yourself. Beginning the process with a set of standards in mind will
increase the chances you’ll make a choice your family can happily live with for
years to come.

Here are a number of parameters that will help you identify and
select a high-quality housekeeper or maid service.

• House cleaning services that are licensed, bonded, and
  insured tend to be professionally managed, safer to deal with, and more
  service oriented
• A professional maid service
  or housekeeper should be willing to give you a free in-home estimate,
  based on factors such as the size of your home, how frequently the service
  would be provided, and the level of difficulty.
• Quality housekeeping
  services should have no qualms about providing you with customer
  references and contact information. It’s a good sign when a housekeeper or
  maid service has a list of satisfied customers that they’re willing to
  share with you.
• Getting two or three price quotes provides solid points
  of comparison and is a good way to make sure you’re getting the most value
  for your money.
• When interviewing a maid service or housekeeper, look
  for signs that they have a professional attitude and that they take pride
  in their work.

Once you’ve found a house cleaning service
that appears to be a good match for your family and budget, it’s always
beneficial to maintain good communication with your cleaning person on a
regular basis. One way to accomplish this is by leaving a notepad out on the
kitchen table for passing along instructions, requests, or questions. The
housekeeper should also be encouraged to let you know about any house
maintenance or cleaning problems they’ve noticed. If you’ve agreed to provide
them with cleaning supplies, then they can also use the notepad to tell you when
supplies are getting low.

Among the decisions that a homeowner
is faced with when hiring a cleaning service is whether they’re comfortable
providing an extra house key to the cleaning person or service. Some customers might
prefer to be home when the house cleaner arrives or leave a key under a doormat
or flowerpot. This choice is up to you, but if you do your due diligence when selecting a home cleaning service, you’ll have greater peace of mind no matter what you decide regarding keys.

Regular professional cleaning is an important part of keeping your home or business looking in top-notch condition over the long term. However, there are situations in which even the best cleaning will not take care of certain issues. Mold cleanup is one of these. If you have a concentrated issue such as mold growth, you need to find a mildew mold removal company that will be able to take care of that specific problem. Then, for more general and comprehensive cleaning work you can call on a professional commercial cleaning pro or household cleaning service.

While some general cleaning or janitorial service professionals may choose to offer specialized services such as mold remediation, that type of specialization is not something that you will automatically find among most cleaning professionals. That is why it will usually be in your best interest to locate a mold company that can serve your specific mold cleanup needs rather than turning to a general cleaning professional. While the latter may offer excellent services, a professional mold cleaning firm will have all of the necessary tools and equipment to both test for mold growth and comprehensively remove it if they find any. By calling on a specialized mold cleaning professional, you’ll know that any mold issue that you have will be well and truly resolved.

When you need more general cleaning help for your home or business, however, turning to a domestic or commercial cleaning serviceis a great option. These professionals will be able to provide routine maintenance cleaning or special occasion cleaning services, such as pre- or post-event cleanup, that will keep your home or business looking its best. Just as a regular cleaning service will not be as much use to you when you have a mold growth problem, mold companies are not the type of cleaning professional you need to call on when you need more standard cleaning help such as bathroom maintenance or carpet cleaning. While both types of firms provide professional cleaning services, you still need to find the one that provides the specific type of service that you require.

When you need expert cleaning services, you should make sure you find the right type of professional to meet your exact needs. Deciding whether you need a mold removal specialist or a household or commercial cleaning pro will ensure that you get precisely the type of cleaning assistance that you require.

There is a range of carpet cleaning companies out there in the world, and they offer a variety of different cleaning choices including wet shampooing, dry shampooing, bonnet cleaning, and, of course, steam cleaning. In name, all of these sound promising, but steam cleaning is the only option that will both clean your carpets fully and will do so without damaging them.

Both the wet and dry shampoo options for carpet and rug cleaning rely on the familiarity that we all have with the idea of shampooing to convince us that they’re actually accomplishing deep cleaning. However, shampoos–whether a water-activated wet version or a powder-style dry version–can leave residue in and on your carpets, actually making them dirtier than they were before. To counteract this, some wet shampoo methods will employ optical brighteners added into the detergent. These will make the carpet look great for a time, as they convert invisible ultraviolet light into visible light, making the carpet look brighter and cleaner to the naked eye. However, these brighteners will ultimately discolor your carpets in the long run, leaving them with a yellowish tinge. Bonnet cleaning is a straight adaptation of hard floor cleaning, in which a rotary disk sprays and buffs the floor surface. As you can imagine, this method can quickly damage carpet fibers, especially when it comes to a thick pile carpet. And, like other shampoo versions, it fails to clean deep down or remove all residue or debris in the cleaning process.

Steam carpets cleaning, on the other hand, does succeed in removing debris, including dirt, pollen, and other allergens, without damaging your carpet in the least. Using a fine spray of water, steam cleaning physically forces these particles up and out of the carpet pile and then sucks them up with the accompanying vacuum head. Whereas other methods rely on detergents to somehow magically bind with the dirt and bring it to the surface, steam cleaning physically moves all the debris out of the carpet fibers. The majority of the moisture is then removed almost immediately via the vacuum component that moves along with the sprayer. This means that there’s no danger of mold or mildew growing in or on the carpet, as can happen with wet shampoo methods’ oversaturation. The carpet fibers themselves are not agitated, scrubbed, or buffed during steam cleaning, so they retain their original structure and orientation without fuzzing or pilling. Fundamentally, your carpets look and are cleaner after a steam cleaning without enduring any wear or tear.

When it’s time to call a carpet cleaning professional, find one that offers steam cleaning. That way, you will get truly clean carpets with no fuss, no residue, and no damage.

Most of us pay regular attention to cleanliness inside our homes, but we often forget to keep up with the outside in the same way. However, exterior home elements, such as siding, decks, and garden structures, get dirty just like interior carpets, floors, and walls. If you notice that your outside walls or deck surfaces are looking a little lackluster, getting a professional pressure washing business on the job can make a huge difference. Keeping your home’s exterior clean will keep your property looking great and ensure that your exterior remains in good condition for as long as possible.

Cleaning your siding or your deck requires a different approach than most of us are used to, or even have the capacity to do on our own. No matter how much you scrub, typical cleaning tools, solutions, and efforts simply won’t cut it when it comes to the exterior of your home. This is because, over time, dirt, pollen, and mold actually become embedded in exterior surfaces. This doesn’t mean that you, as a homeowner, have done anything wrong–it’s simply the reality of those surfaces’ exposure to the elements day in and day out. That said, however, you don’t have to let the elements simply have their way. Call a power washing pro to get out all of that debris! Power washing works by applying a combination of pressurized water, heat, and detergent to the outside surfaces of your home. Your cleaning professional will hook up his or her pressure washer machine to your water source, then apply the solution to the surfaces that you want cleaned using even, steady strokes. This will get out all of the embedded grime without damaging anything, leaving a beautiful, clean surface behind.

Just like deep cleaning your carpets or washing your walls, a pressure wash treatment isn’t something you need to do all the time. The microscopic debris that causes your home’s exterior to look a little world-weary doesn’t accumulate overnight, so there’s no reason to clean it off constantly. However, building in a power washing session to your home upkeep schedule on a regular basis–say, once a year–is a great way to keep your home looking in peak condition. This regular deep cleaning will also help those outside surfaces stay in good repair over the long term. When you regularly remove all the stuff that can get embedded in your siding or deck surfaces, you help preempt any deterioration that that debris might cause. Your power washing professional will also be able to bring to your attention any structural issues that they find or observe during the cleaning process. Armed with that information, you can address and repair any minor problems before they cause major damage.

Pressure washing is a simple and effective way to clean the outside surfaces of your home. This cleaning work has an immediate, positive impact on the look of your property, and, when done regularly, helps keep the outside of your home in good condition in the long term.

From a very young age most of us are taught to clean up after ourselves. In most cases this is an excellent strategy – we should all take responsibility for the messes we make and for the trash that we generate. But sometimes the type of trash that we need to get rid of is beyond our scope, either in size or in amount. At other times we may simply not be in a position, logistically, to take care of necessary trash disposal without outside help. In these situations, hiring professional trash haulers or junk removers is an excellent choice. Employing professional help to dispose of the trash that is on your hands is sometimes the most responsible thing you can do.

When it comes to regular trash disposal, most of us have no issues. We take the trash out weekly, it gets picked up, and that’s the end of the story for us. Sometimes we have to deal with dragging heavier-than-usual trashcans out to the curb, but even that is manageable, if a little difficult. But what do you do when the “trash” you need to get rid of is an old piece of furniture or a broken appliance? Most municipal garbage collection agencies won’t take items like this, no matter how far out on the curb you put them. In order to get rid of these items, they have to be taken directly to a dump site. If you don’t have the appropriate manpower or vehicle to make that trip, you’re out of luck in terms of handling that disposal on your own. This type of situation is one in which professional junk removal services play a key role. If, by yourself, you truly can’t remove an item that has become “trash,” such as an old, uncomfortable couch or a broken dishwasher, call a pro for appliance or furniture disposal. They’ll be able to remove the item and dispose of it in the appropriate way, saving you from struggling to keep it in your house or get rid of it on your own.

In addition to the physical difficulties of disposing of some trash items by yourself, there are also times when logistics make it almost impossible to responsibly deal with garbage disposal without outside help. Take, for example, a situation in which someone is moving out of a property. Between doing the work of clearing out unwanted things, packing the items that you are keeping, and coordinating all of the other details of a move, it can be nearly impossible to find the time to take excess trash to the dump. If you are in the role of a landlord or property manager, there may even be other situations in which you’re not even on site to have the option of disposing of trash items yourself. In these cases, hiring a garbage removal company to take care of everything from appliance disposal to trash hauling may be the only way to address the problem without disrupting your life and jeopardizing the other tasks and responsibilities that you have on your plate.

If you are able to deal with all of the trash that you generate or come across in your life, that’s wonderful. But if there are situations in which either physical or logistical circumstances make it difficult or impossible to address trash removal on your own, contacting your local junk hauling professionals for expert assistance is an excellent choice.

Maria Allen is a homeowner and an Internet marketer for Prospect Genius, a provider of affordable marketing solutions.