OT: dumpster dive and water/mold cleanup (was: Re: cctalk digest ...)

--- Tothwolf <tothwolf(a)concentric.net> wrote: I had a major catastrophe in my storage area about 10 years ago. I was working in the basement below the shop my mother was renting for her typing/typesetting business. The beauty salon next door managed to plug the sewage line with feminine products (as evidenced by several pounds of cotton snaked out of the line during the repair). The first thing that happened was 6" of rainwater. Two days later, it was replaced by 2" of sewage. Fortunately, I had begun the recovery work when it was just water. Among the casualties were a Diablo "RK03" disk drive, and a book case full of 1970s BYTE magazines - paid for by subscription, not free to me. The magazines were on the bottom shelf of a pressboard book case, low enough to wick up the water. They split the book case and dumped the contents into the pool. I wrapped up all the books and magazines in saran wrap and froze them to give me time to deal with them. I stacked them in the freezer at work (people didn't store lunches in there). About 5 at a time, I would remove them, unwrap them, and place them under the raised floor under a board and a weight, right in front of the air inlet. With the constantly moving air, they didn't mold, and did a fair job of drying out without too much cling and damage (on newsprint pages). I did lose a few things - DEC GIGI terminal glossies, some Dec-u-scopes and a few 1975-1980-era DEC and DECUS publications. I think I saved about 80% of the magazines and hardback books, at least to a readable state, wrinked but informationally intact. Good luck on what you have left to rescue. Water is probably one of the easiest ways to damage those things we most want to preserve. It's OK if your circuits get wet, but not the docs and software. -ethan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes http://finance.yahoo.com