Sewer backed-up and preps-advice needed

Some of you may have read in the shoutbox about my drainage backing up. End result is we had a clog but is working fine now. The waste water from the duplex came into my basement. It was not inches of water but it was wide spread. I have read and talked to people who say throw it all out. Anything that the water touched is contaminated. Please note, I was not home when this happened so the person watching my home moved stuff and piled stuff on stuff, further contaminating bins, buckets etc....

Yesterday I took a carload to the dump. Has anyone experienced this? I am really discouraged. I am a prepper. I own stuff. I have buckets of food. Some of the buckets were removed from the water area and stacked onto buckets that were in the dry area. I had a large duffel bag of BB guns, pellet guns, CO2 cartridges, pellets etc. the bag absorbed the water which got all over the stuff inside. That is hundreds of dollars in stuff that got wet. I do not think I can salvage them or can I disinfect them?

I need help. I need advice. How would you deal with this? @JC Refuge I have buckets of your products, any advice? The Rubbermade totes can be replaced but what about all my food inside my storage buckets? People have said that bleach eats or weakness plastics. Dehydrated foods come in sealed buckets. The outside is contaminated but the inside should be fine.

Any advice, any stories of people who have dealt with this, anything would help. I do not want me or my family to get sick but I also do not want to just toss everything down there. How long do these germs live on plastic? Help!!!

 

As the saying goes, "when in doubt, throw it out."

If it amount to a large monetary loss, then claim it on your insurance.

 

At first I was calm about, now that I have started to mentally calculate, I feel sick. Preppers are supposed to practice OPSec and filing an insurance claim would reveal that secret.

 

Back when I lived in the city, I experienced one of those blackwater events due to city sewer problems.
yuck. I was fortunate that I had most of my stuff either on the first floor or attic storage. so it was mainly a cleanup and demo finish basement and refinish job. House smelled of bleach for weeks.

Anyway, first thing I did after cleanup was to install flood guards in all the floor drains. You can get them for your floor drains for about 20 bucks on amazon (hint use our shopping link and search for flood guard).

next time it happened (it happened 2 more times before I got the heck out of the city) my neighbors were the ones with the issues .. and not me.

 

25% bleach solution will kill almost everything, and can be applied to anything non-absorbent like the buckets you mentioned. Allow to air dry to increase contact time. This can also be sprayed on wooden surfaces and also allowed to air dry, but may cause bleaching of the color. Next step is to install a swing check on the main sewer into the home to prevent future problems.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BQSFJ6/?tag=survivalmonke-20

 

Never store any thing where it can flood, never stack plastic buckets on top of each other. Never store in plastic buckets where you have varmints. Store any survival items in steel containers.

 

@BTPost when you day build a UV box, are you talking about having UV on 3 sides? or do you need an actual box

@Motomom34 so sorry this happened to you, it's one of those things you can't plan for as a prepper, same goes if the house burns down, it's great to prep and having all our eggs in one basket is a risk

 

If a bucket is air tight then it is water tight. Disinfect anything air tight with bleach and send to me if you don't want it. That's one of the reasons for using buckets in the first place instead of paper bags.

 

I agree with these posts if there were only inches and even if they got stacked a good spray with soap and bleach use a mask and gloves and toss all cleaning cloths into the washer with some bleach. If I died from crap I have been in on me and I waded through it would have all been over a long time ago. BUT there is always a but, this is why I use mylar bags to store my stuff in buckets it is a second layer of protection for loose or open product like rice flour and stuff like that.

Here is a link to Mylar bags for 5 gallon buckets https://beprepared.com/metalized-storage-bag.html

 

Besides the obvious OPSEC being blown with an insurance claim, most insurance companies have limits of coverage on specific items. I think my limit on food items is $1K. My point of this is if your food limit is the same as mine and your food loss is $3K then only claim up to your $1K limit so they don't know how much you really had. This also goes for any thing else claimed with a limit.

 

If you can, rent a real steam cleaner, set your stuff out in a work area like a drive way and carefully steam it all out. You can probably save some items you believed lost, especially if you can toss them in a washing machine later! Mix up some Vinagar and pre spray your totes and buckets before steaming and you should be good to go! You can also stop by the local dollar store and pick up the brand "Awesome" yellowish liquid and th at works as she name says, and will really help sanitize the work area after your done, just spray it off and your good to go!

 

The bbs and pellets the co2 will be fine when washed lead pellets will just turn white bbs may rust but won't hurt any thing co2 I would dry and give it a lite coat of oil and may be the bbs to if it was in plastic wash like MREs The heavy plastic bag as long as the it don't have a hole in it should be fine

 

Building a UV box is one way to disinfect hard goods, but it's a bit of a chore and UV bulbs are expensive.

For the room as a whole, after you have cleaned and repaired, you might consider installing one overhead UV bulb and running it 24/7 for a week or so.

Boiling hard stuff is a cheap, reliable, and quick way to sterilize it.

For bbs, pellets, and the like, wash them in hot soapy water. That will dispose of any crud on them. Drain them in a small colander.

Set the colander full of washed bbs (or pellets) into a large pan of boiling water and cook them for a minute or two.

That will kill any bad bugs that somehow survived the soapy water.

After draining them, let each batch evaporate dry in the colander, then finish-dry them by tumbling them in a bag of very fine sawdust. A large zip-lock bag with a couple of handfuls of sawdust will easily do a pound or two of hard goods at a time.

Sift the bbs (or pellets) out of the sawdust with the collander or a piece of window screen, or just winnow them in the "traditional" fashion in front of an electric fan.

For storing unboxed bbs, pellets, uncased lead bullets, etc., I find that tying them up in pieces of nylon stocking or panty hose works well.

Then the bag-bundles can be stored in anything from ammo cans to plastic coffee cans.

Bear in mind, too, that most bad bugs die off all by them selves pretty quickly on a dry surface. E. coli is about the toughest: it can last a little over a month on plain stainless steel. So anything you've cleaned and repacked will definitely be safe after three months on the shelf.

Kind of on the subject...since you may need a lot of quick & cheap non-food containers:

Hit the auto repair shops for empty 1quart or 1 gallon antifreeze/tranny fluid bottles. Cut the tops off of them in pairs and wash them like dishes. They will clean easily.

In each pair, cut one open just above the straight wall, so the open rim curves in very slightly. Cut the other off at the top of the straight wall, so it has a flat rim.

Fill the curved rim container full, and the straight one about 3/4 full of "stuff". Then telescope them together (flat end over curved end) and seal the overlap with duct tape.

The resulting package will be tough, cheap, waterproof, and easy to stack. And it won't waste much space.

With my old Panhead I used to carry all my tools and spare parts in re-purposed anti-freeze bottles. That not only kept everything together, they minimized rattling, and gave me a gallon or so of storage if I had to drain oil or gas on the side of the road.

I also carried a full change of clothes in them--and no matter how long they rode in my saddle bags they never got wrinkled or dirty. Or wet.

My saddlebags weren't even remotely rainproof.

The reason old Harleys have saddle bags is really very simple: you always need one completely full of tools, and one completely full of spare parts. Plus a pizza box for making head gaskets.

The reason new Harleys have saddle bags is also simple: Nostalgia.

BTW: The 2-bottle trick also works well with plastic booze bottles.