Becoming a homeowner grants you a lot of freedom and financial options, but it also makes you responsible for all home maintenance and for the repairs and cleanup that any major accident might require. This could include a natural disaster, a car crashing into your house, water damage from an upstairs faucet you forgot to turn off, or any number of other situations. There’s no longer a landlord you can call to deal with the headache, so it’s all on you.
Fortunately, there are plenty of resources you can turn to when faced with a major accident in your home. While they’re never easy to deal with, and some may be costly, the important thing to remember is that you will get through it. Here are some tips for dealing with some of the most common damages caused by home accidents.
Repairing Water Damage
There are plenty of potential causes for water damage in your home, but repairing it mostly involves the same steps. Maybe a pipe burst while you were away, you had a sewage backup, or your area just suffered a particularly bad flood. Water damage is one of the primary reasons why you should always check with your home insurance company to see if you can add flood coverage if it isn’t included in your regular insurance policy.
The first step is always to identify the source of the water. In the event of a natural disaster or burst pipe, this should be obvious. It’s possible that you have a leak in the wall, ceiling, or other difficult-to-reach areas, however. You may need professional help from a plumber or contractor to identify the source. Once it’s identified, you’ll need to clear out any standing water and dehumidify the remaining moisture before cleaning the residue. At this point, you can begin repairs and restorations. Unfortunately, some items like carpet and electronics damaged in a flood will need to be replaced entirely.
Dealing With an Unattended Death
This one may sound unusual, but it’s not exactly uncommon for people to die in their homes. This can happen due to heart attacks, slip, and fall accidents, or even due to a homicide. Having a death in the house is an inherently traumatic event, but it’s made worse by the fact that there are biohazards from bodily fluids, not to mention the inevitable odors. You’ll need the help of death cleaning services to deal with all this.
Technical cleaning services are called in for crime scene cleanup, blood and other bodily fluids cleanup, and even death cleaning. These technicians specialize in decomposition cleanup for cases where the body has been there for a while (such as if the death occurred shortly after the homeowner was out for an extended period). The last thing you need to deal with after such a traumatic event is worry about the clean-up process, and property owners can find rapid service with compassion from these professionals.
Repairing Smoke Damage
Mild smoke damage may occur in a home from smoking cigarettes, but nicotine use is unlikely to be considered a “major accident.” Fires from unattended cooking and other sources of major smoke damage can completely destroy a home, however. Understanding smoke damage is imperative for your safety at home in the event of a fire, and it’s always important to evacuate immediately.
Smoke inhalation can easily lead to death due to airborne toxins, and even if fires are extinguished quickly, they can leave extensive smoke damage on walls and any area of the home that was filled with smoke. If the damage to a wall is mild, you may be able to simply paint over it. Otherwise, you’ll likely need professional restoration.
