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Salvaging Possessions from Smoke Damage?
SnowDeath asks: "My home caught on fire last Wednesday while my girlfriend and I were off watching the new Harry Potter movie and now we are pretty much left with crap. Most of our stuff didn't get damaged by fire, but rather severly smoke damaged. Does anyone have any suggestions for getting that horid smoke damage out of out clothes, furniture, and computer parts (our mobos were destroyed by smoke)?" Those who would like to donate a buck or two to SnowDeath's "Oh crap, my house caught fire and now I have nothing!" relief fund can go here.
Throw it in the shower. (Hey, keep reading dammit!)
Use the hottest water you can and/or 409 on everything, open up the power supply so it gets rinsed really well, take the shell off the monitor as well. (This is the only dangerous part, the caps can store a charge for several days!).
Then when everything's totally drenched and you're thinking WTF am I doing, shake as much water off as you can. Then grab your handy spray bottle of WD-40 (you can buy the stuff at the hardware store by the gallon). Use the WD40 to drive the water off and to dissolve the remaining crud. Note - do not use WD-40 on the internals of the kbd or mouse!! (You can never get the residue out of the sensors on the mouse and the kbd contacts will actually soak it up! Both bad...)
Then use a gallon or two of isopropyl alcohol (the purer the better) to clean off the WD-40 residue and to finish the kbd/mouse.
Then let everything sit with a fan blowing on it for a few hours to get the alcohol evaporated.
And for about $30 of household chemicals and a couble hours of your time it'll all be clean!
You can also use 100% evaporating electronic cleaner/degreaser instead of all the above but it'll cost 5 times as much and may not get it as clean.
what insurance company did she have? i recently read an article on insurance companies trying to screw over homeowners when a fire happens, so im trying to find out what the good ones are.