How to clean your home after a flood

>>> we're back now at 8:42 with "today's home." a lot of houses suffered water damage when sandy roared ashore. what are the best ways to tackle a flood. here with some tips is our "today" contributor, host of the syndicated show "house smarts." lou, good to see you. good morning.

>> good morning.

>> first of all, if you have severe, severe flooding and water damage in your home you're going to need a professional.

>> you are. my concern is there's so much damage on the northeast that these professionals will be completely overloaded and people won't want to wait, so what concerns me is that they are doing this safely and taking the right precautions and doing it enough so that they don't make it worse.

>> if you still have water standing in your home, one of the things you want people not to do is go into that area, especially if the power is still on.

>> correct. here's the problem. we've got electrical outlets and switch gear and mechanical systems that are down there that could be in contact with the water, and there's an electrical hazard. power needs to be out first before we enter any of those lower levels. how do you protect yourself.

>> matt, this water is all contaminated. got to wear rubber boots and respirators or masks, wear eye protection . this is like a protective suit . you've got to get quality stuff. this is 3-m stuff. it's really good, and you need to wear it constantly when you're down there. you will make yourself sick if you go down there and clean up and you're not protected.

>> let's talk about the home now. water in the basement or on the first floor, in the walls. got to get the carpet out of there and the affected flooring out of there.

>> all that have has to come out.

>> i don't want people to think they can clean the carpeting. this is contaminated water . the insulation inside under the dry wall . we need to cut the dry wall out.

>> a food fot above the water level .

>> take a dry wall saw like this and cut it by hand. all of this needs to come out. i need gloves. this is going to be saturated. if this doesn't come out. this is like a home for mold and mildew to grow, and you'll have all kinds of problems down the line.

>> talk to me about the products.

>> bleach is an awesome product but for porous materials not the best choice . you need swg more residual value that as a cleaner with a disinfectant. cleaners like pine-sol or simple green . don't mix the cleaners together, scrub like crazy and let it sit for a while after you scrubbed it so it can work and then rinse it again.

>> washing it down with water after you've used it.

>> we need more water to clean it out.

>> okay. and then you've got to dry it out.

>> now it's all soaking wet. you made me clean it. it's soaking wet. air flow is your friend. if you can find these box fans now.

>> if you have power.

>> if you have power, this is going to take days to dry out, and you want to get as much air flow as possible. possible to get a window open to get some fresh air , i realize it's getting cold this, will make a huge difference.

>> done a lot of segments in the past about mold hand how damaging it can be to a home. the fact that we're now in fall, is that a little bit better in terms of we don't have the heat august or something like that.

>> it actually is. the silver lining is that it's a little bit cooler so we don't have the humidity where basements tend to be mist and warm which is great for mildew and mold. this has a residual value for a cleaner you can use that when you spray it on there it inhibits the growth of mold and this is by a company called natural magic . if you stick one of these in front of a fan because they work on air flow, what's going to happen is you're going to start to smell that odor which is going to grab the odor in the room and drop it to the ground and eliminate it while making it smell a little nicer.

>> what do you have here?

>> a lot of cars under water, too. again, the carpeting, all of this has to come out. depending on the water damage of the car, the carpeting in that car needs to come out, but some of these carpet extractors that you can rent have these wands to help you clean the up holtzry in the car, even some of the furniture in your home this. can help. all, of course, meaning you need power which is the first thing. listen, i'm from the midwest. the rest of the country has a great amount of empathy for people in the northeast. we are helping, too. a lot of people are gathering up funds and money and racing awareness to try to help the people, so my thing is hang in there, do it safely. we're going to help everybody get through it.

>> always good advice, lou. thank