Can moldy books saved from flood be put in my freezer?

November 27, 2012 1:04 PM

Can moldy books saved from flood be put in my freezer?

I saved 2 books from Hurricane Sandy; everything else was too far gone. Thoroughly soaked, smelly, I actually put them under water to remove whatever other gunk may have been in the water. then double-bagged ziplocs, and a trash bag (but could not quite seal them) and put in freezer. They are now heavy bricks. Is this safe to my frozen food? how can I someday rescue these books?

posted by ebesan to science & nature (6 answers total)

Absolutely not. The source of the water was not clean so you should treat the books at contaminated.

And contaminated things should not be allowed anywhere near food, frozen or not. The problem isn't the freeze. It's that when you take the stuff out of freeze...have they been contaminated? You don't know. And because you don't know...ditch the books and anything that they and the trash bag touched in the freezer.
posted by inturnaround at 1:18 PM on November 27, 2012 [4 favorites]

Sorry.

I know it sucks, but contamination...ew.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 1:22 PM on November 27, 2012

yikes. ok, throw all of the freezer stuff out? When cleaning things out, I used gloves, wore a mask briefly, and after washed my clothes, and took a shower. Was that enough? What about the lower refrigerator? was ordinary wash/dry sufficient for my clothes?
posted by ebesan at 1:28 PM on November 27, 2012

Should be fine. Bleach is your friend.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 1:29 PM on November 27, 2012

yikes again. I have done some other post-flood cleanup (drywall, flooring removal); observed the major precautions. Washed my clothes after w/ bleach, except a few non-bleach items. Washed/bleached off my boots too, before walking thru the apartment. This is what others have recommended. Opinions?
posted by ebesan at 1:48 PM on November 27, 2012

The recommendations here were to discard all clothes that got wet as a result of Sandy, not wash with bleach.

I'd write off your books too, unless you felt like completely disassembling them separating all the pages, washing them one by one through clean water, drying them and then reassembling (and even then, who knows how clean that really would be, but at least you wouldn't be wearing it).
posted by Brian Puccio at 5:24 PM on November 27, 2012