The urge to get the smell out of the house is correct. The urge to fling everything into the yard before a single photo is how claims shrink.
You need the water line, the room, the item, and if you can, a serial number. Then you can tear it apart.
Houston debris piles grow overnight. Your evidence should not live only in that pile.
Do this now
- Walk the house on video, slowly, before you move more than you must for safety.
- Photograph each damaged room wide, then the water line with a tape, then ruined items.
- Write a simple list: room, item, brand if you know it, why it is a loss.
- Keep receipts for pumps, fans, hotels, and the first dump run.
A minimum that still works
Phone video from the street, through the door, then each room. Say the date out loud. Flip light switches so you remember what did not work.
For a ruined fridge or washer, get the model sticker. For clothes, a pile photo plus a count is better than nothing.
Upload the album to a cloud account while you still have a signal at a library or a friend’s dry house. Phones drown in the next puddle.
What you can toss after you shoot it
Food, soaked pad, sewage-soaked porous junk: shoot it, then it goes. You do not need to keep a bag of spoiled chicken for the adjuster.
Ask the carrier if they want you to hold appliances. Some do. Get that answer in the claim notes.
If a volunteer crew is coming at 8 a.m., do the photo walk at 7. They will not wait for your feelings about the sofa, and they should not.
Sequence that actually stuck
Photograph, then pull water, then get wet porous stuff out, then dry the framing. Power only from a dry location. Do not run a flooded HVAC. Do not close walls because you are tired of looking at studs. That sequence is what Houston cleanup threads kept repeating after Harvey.
Do this next
- First 24 hours: pull water, move stuff, start airflow
- Shop vacs, pumps, and what to borrow from a neighbor
- Water cleanup hub
More in Getting water out & drying now.