If you have ever had a major pipe burst or flood in your home and walked into a huge mess, you probably wouldn’t believe that you could stay organized at all. However, you can be organized even when you are dealing with a major water damage cleanup process. The key to staying organized is to stay positive and take breaks often when you feel overwhelmed. Cleaning up a water damage mess can be emotionally devastating, but with the help of restoration professionals from 24Restore in St. Paul, you will be back on your feet in no time. Here are some tips for staying organized during your cleanup.
Keep Track Of Calls
When you have a major water damage cleanup situation, you have to make a ton of phone calls to a bunch of different people, and it can be easy to lose track of who you have contacted and what information they provided. The best thing you can do is to make a spreadsheet of all the people you call, and what you discuss. This way you can be sure that you did make the phone call to the insurance company and gave them the quote from the restoration company. And you can remember that you called a hotel and canceled your reservations because your mother invited you to stay at her place. You need to be able to check these items off a physical list so that you can stay organized and know that communication is happening. Also, checking items off a list will give you a sense of accomplishment and will show you that you are making progress even when it feels like the process is so slow.
Damages
You will need to make another spreadsheet to document all of the damages. This is vital information that your insurance company will need to be able to refund you any money according to your insurance policy. If you have a hard time documenting all the items before they are cleaned out, take pictures and then go through them after to document your losses. Sometimes insurance companies want photos anyway in addition to a list of damages.
This part of the water damage cleanup process can be particularly hard to deal with, especially because will notice all of your belongings that you are damaged beyond repair. The best thing you can do is ask a friend to help you so that you can take a break every now and then or so you can focus on other parts while he or she weeds through the damaged items.
Communicate
There is a lot of communication that needs to take place between you, your restoration company, insurance company, and family and friends. So a good way to stay organized is to make sure you are communicating with everyone. If your water damage cleanup is going to take several days, have morning or nightly check-ins with your restoration company and other people helping.
Dealing with water damage cleanup can feel like a full-time job. When you hire 24Restore, we will be there to help every step of the way. If you need any advice or a consultation, call today.