More basement drauma

Don't you just hate it when you try to make the right decision and in the end it turns out to be the wrong one? Well it seems to have happened to me again. This time in regards to the basement. Back when it flooded a few weeks ago I had a hard time finding a company to come out to the house in a timely manner to suck up all the water. I finally found 2 companies, one charged by the hour ($110) and one charged a flat fee ($0.43 per sq. ft). It was a tough decision, but in the end I decided that the flat fee would be the smarter move, we have about 550 square feet so the most it would cost would be around $240 if we went with the flat fee company. The carpet cleaning company that charged by the sq. foot also agreed with me that the hourly rate seemed high, so I went with that company. Well guess what, it only took them an hour to suck all the water up because we had done so much of it ourselves before they got here. That was wrong choice #1.

Then we looked around at all the stains left on the carpet from the furniture and I asked the lady if she thought she could get them out because I wasn't going to waste my money trying to dry out, re lay and clean carpet that wasn't going to look like it did before the flood. She said she couldn't give me a 100% guarantee, but felt confident that it would clean up nicely. So we pressed onward. After paying $240 for the water extraction, renting 2 fans for 5 days at $50 per day, having them come out and re stretch and re lay the carpet and clean it (who knows what that costs) we still have very unsightly stains on the carpet. Not just where the furniture was either, it seems that there are stains everywhere scattered about and it's bad enough that I am not willing to just let it go. Either the stains must come out, or the carpet will. It just makes me so mad that I didn't just rip it out from the start, instead, I will have to pay all that expense of trying to fix it, and then pay someone else to fix it right. What a pain.

And just so you don't think I am over reacting, here are a few pictures of some of the stains.

This one here is a large area where the TV was that sat on the floor. The TV is ruined so it wont be returning to the same spot, and when we replace it, I'm pretty sure it wont be with one that sits on the floor. (you know, just in case)

In the spare bedroom there are 8 stains just like this one where the dresser legs and the bed posts sat on the floor. I guess if we always keep the furniture in the exact same spot it would be okay, but who wants to have to do that?And this is what the edge looks like along the wall in the TV room. See how dark and stained it is? That's gross. Oh and in case your wondering, we still have to replace the baseboards and re paint the walls. Don't worry when it's all said and done, it will look as good as new, it's just a matter of when, how and how much it will cost.