Kitchen Nightmares, Part 2: Remediation

When we last left our heroine, she was vigorously moving everything out of her kitchen and into the dining room in preparation for the water clean-up company to treat the mold and elevated moisture found in said kitchen following The Potato Peel Flood.

The water clean-up company came as scheduled, a couple of weeks after the flood.  They immediately moved the fridge into the dining room and the stove into the living room.

 

With those out of the way, the two-man crew got to work pulling up the linoleum and sub-floor and tearing out the cabinets.  They obviously had to take off the counter top and sink in the process.  It was a noisy, messy job that took a few hours, at least.  In the process, they discovered mold under a second cabinet. (We already knew there was mold under the cabinet under the sink.)  Here are a few pictures of the carnage.

Floor removal

Cabinet destruction

Part-way through, they sealed the kitchen with plastic (as shown above, next to the fridge) in order to contain the mold spores and any other hazardous air particles.  Once all the debris had been removed, they set up a large fan/air purifier device that ran continuously for 48 hours.  Supposedly it killed all the mold spores and harmful bacteria in the air, making my kitchen the most sanitary room in the house.

Below is what it looked like when they were done.  Notice the counter top leaning vertically against the wall in the photo on the right. They had saved the non-moldy cabinet because the plumber's insurance was trying to be cheap and not replace it, even though that would mean that the lower cabinets didn't match.  Thankfully, they saw common decency and responsibility and did replace it in the end.

 Next up:  Renovation!