And on that note, IF you have used bleach, DO NOT use ammonia as the two mixed are extremely toxic!

I never knew that. I though bleach killed everything.
I have mixed different bathroom cleaners before. The fumes will run you out of the house. Good advice, use one or the other, never both at the same time.
Rodney

Stitchit123,

We already have mold. This basement leaks with every heavy rain, but has only flooded twice. Once last year just before I came down with e-coli and this time. Most of our stuff was off the floor but what was damaged was because of how deep the water got. Had it just got to a couple inches like usual, then we would have had no problems.

We haven't tried the bleach or anything else to kill the mold yet.

We found out about bleach / ammonia fumes years ago when we tried to bleach mop a kitchen floor that had been severely violated by tom cat. WHOOOOWEEEE that was a nasty combination.

Joe

I hope the damage isn't too severe. If I wasn't half the country away I'd help.
I understand completely about too much stuff. Our house is FULL! Not quite hoarders but we do have more stuff than places to put it. My wife is working on selling off a bunch of the stuff from 5 years ago when we quit our little antiques business. So far, no takers. It also doesn't help that we started acquiring stuff for a major kitchen remodel that the plug was pulled on when the economy went sour. The garage has a full set of cabinets and some appliances on top of everything else we have in there. Given all that my sewing machine obsession is just a drop in the bucket.
We need the money or I would donate a bunch of stuff just to get it out of here.
Rodney

Joe, so sorry to hear about this. I'd come to help but I'm 2000 miles west. A word of caution-- Please wear a mask as you work down there. Molds are very dangerous things. Please. We do not need you and your bride sick.

Joe and Elaine, I am so sorry for you, and while never had a flood had a fire just after my first DH went to Germany for 2 years and I had two kids, 3 cats and 2 dogs and a mess and it was not easy. If I could help from FL I would, prayers coming your way. Husband 2 lived on Fox River for years and they flooded every spring.
So sorry for your wife's books, that hurts.

I've known of an instance when a house blew up because someone poured chlorine and ammonia down the kitchen drain. It's not just the eye burning reactions. In another post Miriam made a comment to someone about using borax instead of bleach. I agree with her. Over time, I've learned that mold comes back with a vengance after being bleached. At this website, there is some good info. http://blacktoxicmolds.com/borax-kill-mold.php If I have not added this link properly, I found it at blacktoxicmolds.com I have used a mixture of tsp., vinegar, borax, and baking soda to scrub mildew off interior basement walls of concrete block after we took care of the water problem.

Joe I beleive you rent right. I think IL has a rentee and landlord laws on the books. If your basement is not water proof and health hazzard then the landlord may be responible for the damage for not maintaining his property for the renter. You may want to look into this.
Skip

I can relate. An outside faucet pipe broke and it runs into the basement thru the ceiling rafters.............right over my dress fabrics and notebooks full of projects. Missed my quilt machine but my foot controller to the Viking was sitting in the water before I found I even had a broken pipe. Only one fabric bled onto another fabric, the foot controller dried out and all it good. I washed a bunch of fabrics and ironed the linen stuff, threw out the notebooks full of projects as I doubt if I'd ever get to them anyway. Had all the pages in the plastic sleeves with the opening on top so you know the ink was everywhere in the sleeve.

Learned a valuable lesson and it gave me a reason to cleaned the room up and reorganized a bit.

Please make sure that you and your wife wear masks when venturing downstairs to the basement...Mold is so dangerous. My son and an electrician were both downed by mold in my Aunt's ceiling. The 2 guys ended up sick for a couple of weeks....electrician ended up in the ER.