Cleaning Up After a Water Leak or Flooding in Delhi

What should I do in the first hour?

Safety, then the source, then the water. In that order, and do not skip the first one because the floor is wet and you want to start mopping.

• Keep out of standing water near any electrical point. If water is anywhere near sockets, switches, an inverter, a submersible pump or trailing extension leads, do not wade in. Switch the supply off at the main board if you can reach it safely and dry, and if you cannot, leave the area and get an electrician.
• Do not use switches, sockets or appliances in the affected area until it is dry and checked. Unplug what you can safely reach from a dry position; leave the rest.
• Stop the source. Close the relevant valve, switch the pump or motor off, shut the tank inlet, or turn off the main supply valve to the flat. If the water is coming from above or from a neighbour, tell them and the building staff immediately.
• Photograph everything before you move it. Water level marks on the wall, wet furniture, damaged goods. You will want this for the society, the landlord or any insurance claim, and you cannot recreate it later.
• Lift what can be lifted. Get rugs, cartons, books, electronics, chargers and anything on the lower shelves up and out. Cardboard wicks water upward, so boxes standing in a puddle are ruined from the bottom.
• Put foil or plastic under furniture legs. Wooden and metal legs standing on a wet floor leave stains and rust marks that are permanent.

Getting the water out and cleaning what it left behind

Bulk water first with the crudest tools available, then the dirt, then the disinfecting. Speed beats neatness here — you can clean properly once the room is dry.

• Move bulk water with a squeegee, a dustpan and a bucket. Push it to the floor trap or out to the balcony. A wet-and-dry vacuum, if you or the society has one, does in minutes what mopping does in an hour.
• Then mop repeatedly with clean water, changing it often. Flood water and tank overflow leave a fine silt that dries into a grey film, and mopping with dirty water just spreads it.
• Wash walls up to slightly above the waterline. Water wicks up plaster and paint further than you expect, so treat a hand’s width above the visible mark as affected.
• Disinfect hard surfaces if the water was dirty. Rainwater off a terrace, drain backflow or anything sewage-related needs a disinfectant wash on floors, skirting and lower walls, with gloves on and the room ventilated. Clean tank water is a much simpler clean-up.
• Keep bleach and acidic cleaners apart, and off stone. Never mix them. And if the floor is marble, granite or Kota stone, use a neutral cleaner and a stone-safe disinfectant, because acid permanently etches it.
• Clear the drains and traps that failed. If a blocked floor trap or an overflowing balcony outlet caused it, clearing them now prevents the repeat performance in the next downpour.

How do I dry a room out properly in Delhi humidity?

Move air, remove moisture, and open things up. The target is to have surfaces genuinely dry within about two days, because that is roughly when mould starts to establish on damp material.

• Get air moving across the wet surfaces, not just around the room. Fans pointed at the floor, the skirting and the wet wall do far more than a ceiling fan spinning overhead.
• Open windows only when the outside air is drier than inside. During heavy monsoon weather, opening up on a humid grey day pulls moisture in. On such days keep the windows shut and run a dehumidifier or the AC in dry mode instead, which pulls water out of the air.
• Open up everything closed. Cupboard and wardrobe doors, drawers, the space under the bed, anything with a cavity. Trapped damp inside a wardrobe is where the smell comes from weeks later.
• Pull furniture away from wet walls. An almirah flat against a damp wall stops both from drying and grows mould on the back panel unseen.
• Lift what you can off the floor. Air needs to reach underneath. Rugs and mats should be taken outside entirely.
• Check under and behind, not just on top. Under the bed, behind the sofa, inside the shoe cabinet, under a false-ceiling section that got wet. Surfaces that feel dry can sit on material that is still soaked.
• Give it days, not hours. Plaster and wood hold water long after the surface feels dry. Keep the fans running.

What has to be thrown away after a flood?

Anything porous that was properly soaked, and everything that was touched by dirty water. This is the part people resist, and it is usually the reason a house still smells musty a month later.

• Soaked mattresses and pillows. The foam and fibre inside hold water in the core long after the cover feels dry, and there is no practical way to dry the middle of a mattress at home.
• Carpet underlay and wall-to-wall carpet that sat in dirty water. The carpet itself may sometimes be professionally cleaned if the water was clean and it is dealt with fast; the underlay almost never survives.
• Particle board, MDF and cheap plywood furniture that swelled. Once the board has puffed up at the edges and gone soft, it has delaminated and will not return. Solid wood usually can be dried and saved.
• Wet gypsum board, false ceiling panels and POP that got soaked. These crumble, sag and hold damp. Replace rather than dry.
• Cardboard boxes and paper storage. Move the contents out, bin the boxes. They wick water and grow mould readily.
• Food, medicines and anything sealed that got wet. Packaging is not watertight. Do not take a chance on anything that will be eaten.
• Anything with visible mould growth that cannot be washed. Fabric and paper items with mould through them are not worth saving.
• Electrical items that were submerged. Do not switch them on to test. Have them checked by a technician, and expect that many will not be economic to repair.

Clothes, curtains, cushion covers and washable fabrics are usually fine if they are washed and fully dried quickly. Upholstered furniture that got wet but not soaked may be worth professional cleaning and proper drying — see sofa cleaning and mattress and carpet cleaning.

Mould, smell, and finding the real source

Mould is a damp problem, not a cleaning problem. You can wash it off a hard surface, but it comes straight back unless the material underneath is dry and stays dry.

• Surface mould on tile, glass and painted masonry can be cleaned. A dilute bleach or a proprietary mould remover, left to dwell, then scrubbed and rinsed — gloves on, window open, and never mixed with any acidic cleaner.
• Mould on soft or absorbent material means the material goes. You are removing what you can see and leaving what is inside.
• A musty smell that persists after everything looks clean means something is still wet. Look behind the almirah, under the bed, inside the wardrobe base, under a rug, inside a boxed-in pipe. The smell is the reliable signal, not the appearance.
• Recurring damp on the same patch is not a flood, it is a leak. Paint bubbling, plaster powdering, a permanently dark patch or salty white deposit on the wall means water is arriving continuously from somewhere — a pipe in the wall, the terrace, a shared wall or the bathroom above.
• Do not repaint over a wall that is still damp. Fresh paint on damp plaster peels within months and traps the moisture in.

If the cause was seepage rather than a one-off spill, cleaning will never hold. The source has to be found and fixed first — wall seepage and waterproofing in Delhi covers what that involves. If a tank overflow or a failed float valve caused it, water tank cleaning is worth doing while it is empty anyway. Once the space is dry and the source is fixed, a full clean of the affected rooms is the sensible finish — see what is included in deep cleaning.