Looks like I will be remodeling much sooner than I expected... I live on the ground floor of a two story condominium. The tenet in the unit above me recently moved out and when their movers disconnected the washer and dryer, the facet for the washer connection (not sure what this is technically called) had a slow leak and saturated the drywall below, which then leaked into my utility room directly below and made it's way to the adjacent rooms, bathroom and nook area. This went on for about a week since I wasn't able to get a hold of the owner to the upstairs unit right away. My ceiling in the utility room is mostly ruined and the bathroom ceiling is completely ruined. And all three walls in the utility room were wet and now have green mold growing on them. The bathroom has two interior surface walls that will probably need to be replaced. (I even cut a rectangular hole in the sheet rock to see what the studs look like and sure enough, there is green mold growing up and down them. I've ordered some Biozap mold and mildew remover to see if I can clean the mold off of the 2x4's once I remove all of the ruined drywall.) The nook area has at least one wall that was wet. Possibly the wall that comes off of it will have to have a few feet of sheet rock replaced as well. (I had to take up about two feet of carpet away from the wall, in the nook area that shares a wall with the utility room.) MY QUESTION IS.... WHAT ARE MY NEXT STEPS?? It seems to me that I need to remove all of the drywall that got wet and then clean the studs of any green mold.. I'm fine with having concrete floors and exposed walls for a while since I've wanted to learn about renovating my place. (I know I need to get the owner to the unit upstair's insurance company name and phone number, and his policy number since he is at fault. This will probably be the hardest thing yet. I'm thinking the unit that is next to me, ground floor, might have received some water damage as well. And I could recruit them in my quest for getting our wrongs righted.) So far I've cut out the carpet and padding that was saturated with water. For a couple days I was trying to play catch up and just run the wet vac over the carpet, but I just wasn't able to be home long enough to do any good. Finally, I was able to get in touch with the owner above, and he was able to have his handyman go into the unit and he saw that the washer connection had a small drip and stop it. I was able to go into the condo, along with the handyman and see with my own eyes that the sheetrock right below the hookup was wet/saturated and led right down to the floor, getting wider the further down the wall it went. So again, I've removed all of the wet carpet and padding. I've pulled up the wooden row of nails that hold the carpet in place since they were still saturated and would add to the mildewy smell in the rooms. (still need to hacksaw the concrete nails since they won't pull up without breaking the concrete.) I also preyed out the trim wherever I had removed the wet carpet. All along, I was really hoping there was something wrong with one of the "common pipes" so the home owners association would have to take care of the problem. I'm sure they would be easier to deal with than a hard-to-reach landlord. So, any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm not known for being very handy but willing to research what needs to be done and learn as I go. I've been wanting to improve my place ever since I moved in anyway--now I have my impetus.

Hi everyone, Is it OK to pound nails that are pointing straight downward to the side so that paint doesn't drip down like rain? And, so that no one stabs themselves (I'm thinking of people playing wii games...) (We're planning to rent a sprayer to paint our basement ceiling this week...hence the question.) Above the basement ceiling are extensive hardwood floors and some tile. My concern is damaging the flooring above due to bad hammer swinging! Here's a picture of what I mean, in case you can't picture it: [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v113/melismak/IMG_1231.jpg[/IMG] thanks!