If your home has been unfortunate enough to suffer flooding, you probably called for professional assistance immediately. This is important because it will allow you to keep the damage under control and resolve any potential problems as quickly as possible.

However, there are actions that you can take to also help reduce the chances that your beloved personal possessions will be permanently damaged or that you will have a lot of expensive repairs to do after the professionals leave. Here are some tips for minimizing damage from flooding until the professionals arrive.

1. Remove as Much Excess Water as Possible

Get all of your towels and start blotting up the water. Do not rub the water or smear it. Instead, simply place the towels where puddles have formed on the carpet or where you knew that water had penetrated. Get rid of as much of the excess water as you possibly can. This will help resolve the problems of prolonged water exposure in many situations.

2. Elevate Your Furniture

If you have wooden blocks on hand, use these to elevate your furniture off of wet carpeting. This will help keep the wooden legs of the furniture from being permanently damaged by exposure to water and will allow you to have minimal furniture repairs to do later. If you don't have wooden blocks available for general use, take aluminum foil and place it under the furniture. Be sure that you monitor the aluminum foil for tears. If the carpet is able to get through the foil, there's no point in having the foil at all.

3. Remove Your Rugs

Take any rugs that you might have off the wet carpeting and move to a safe place to fully dry out. This will help keep the colors from the rug running onto the carpet or vice versa.

4. Remove Cushions 

Finally, if your couch cushions or other pillows got wet, remove them from the furniture and prop them up so that as little of their surface area as possible is touching the floor or the walls. This will help them dry out much more quickly and will help reduce the chances that they mold.

For more information, talk to companies like Spotless Carpet Cleaners & Janitorial Services Inc to help you resolve the damage. They will be able to tell you about other preliminary steps that you can take in order to reduce damage.