Protect yourself. Put on personal protective equipment (gloves, mask, goggles) to protect your eyes, nose, mouth, and skin.
Toss! Take it out! Anything that was wet with flood water and can’t be cleaned and dried out completely within 24 to 48 hours should be taken outside. Take photos of discarded items for filing insurance claims.
Air it out. Open all doors and windows when you are working, and leave as many open as you safely can when you leave.
Circulate. When electricity is safe to use, use fans and dehumidifiers to remove moisture.
Don’t mix cleaners. If you use cleaning products, do not mix cleaning products together. DO NOT mix bleach and ammonia because it can create toxic vapors.
Scrub surfaces. Clean with water and a detergent. Remove all mold you can see. Dry right away.
Don’t cover it, remove it. Painting or caulking over mold will not prevent mold from growing. Fix the water problem completely and clean up all the mold before you paint or caulk.
Dry it up. Dry your home and everything in it as quickly as possible – within 24 to 48 hours if you can.
To receive email updates about this page, enter your email address:
Exit Notification / Disclaimer Policy
Links with this icon indicate that you are leaving the CDC website.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website.
Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website.
You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link.
CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website.
For more information on CDC's web notification policies, see Website Disclaimers.
CDC.gov Privacy Settings
We take your privacy seriously. You can review and change the way we collect information below.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.
Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests.
Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data.
Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. These cookies may also be used for advertising purposes by these third parties.
Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page.
