h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Our basement got flooded over a year ago - the 30 gallon water heater choose to purge fully.

I have an office down there, and some irreplaceable and highly identifiable paper-work. Mold and bad stuff is very evident in the paper. Shredding it personally is just as obvious a risk as keeping it and referring to it. How-ever - - -

Does cautious, non-disturbing feeding of this paper to a blazing fireplace (insert, good for wood, etc) pose much of a health threat?

Fireplace has its own fresh air feed, a chimney of its own

I have no idea but something like this in the garden would be safer jusy in case.

https://www.google.fr/search?q=garden+incinerator&espv=2&biw=1455&bih=705&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwiRsq7Vma_KAhUHcBoKHeVmBLgQ_AUIBygC

No back-yard burning is allowed in this town. Well, except for meats on a grill if you have limited skills.

miseries

Can you bury it in the back yard? Might turn into good compost for the plants along with coffee grounds and some banana peels. or at least dump a lot of vinegar( no need be apple cider vinegar) or clorox on it to kill the mold. You could put it in a spray bottle. Then do not put that in the garden. that would kill the plants.

I have dug in the back and front lawns - 4 to 8 inches of soil and then a lot of rock and gravel. Great for drainage, but terrible for digging. And I have two very full boxes of personal military files and history of both myself and my bride.

I will probably be very gentle, and burn them when I am alone. After all of the PCBs, carcinogens and asbestos that I worked with - and already on the short path to the grave - I have little to lose.

~ ~ . . . . .. ...

Nuke it from orbit - it's the only way to be sure :D

Seriously, I very much doubt shredding it is going to do you any harm whatsoever - you have an immune system that copes with mould and bacterial spores all the time, every day.

Burning it is more fun though.

A little off topic, but my first concern would be to grab the information before it's too late.* And to think twice before destroying anything.

There's plenty of advice and experience on the web these days about conserving paper, by museum curators and others (including after floods). I'd explore that before making any decision, to see what the possibilities are (especially as you may not have thought of some of the more counter-intuitive ones). I should have some bookmarks from relevant searches over the years, in case the links would help. One example of an initial overview (though a bit short on the DIY methods);
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1986/04/when-in-doubt-dont-throw-it-out-helping-your-family-records-survive?lang=eng
I also have links re old photos (prints, slides & negatives).

I'd scan/transcribe anything that can't be saved (or maybe even do the whole lot before it deteriorates any more). Glass/clear plastic can shield scanners from damp and other nasties. Doing each sheet immediately before the aforementioned cautious burning could minimise handling, and the fire draught might cut down on airborne mould etc.

Re other disposal methods, I've always felt that scattering paper under some seldom-visited natural vegetation is one of the more benign kinds of fly-tipping. (Especially in wet weather, and especially via buckets with some water added).

*I speak as one who failed to restrain a relative (a privacy zealot) from putting both my parents' correspondence & other papers on the bonfire without anyone looking at them. (It was apparently the correct thing to do after a death, and I wasn't thinking straight just after my father died). That was 30 years ago, and I'm still searching round trying to fill some of the huge gaps in my picture of their lives. (My mother had died 17 years before, when I was 24, and my father had kept her letters).

Thank you for the thoughts. If laid flat, I'd guess at about 22 to 26 inches of paper files. Unfortunately, they were hanging so one full edge of each sheet with have been happy wicks for water and time.

If was a water heater that blew - not any sort of foundation leaks or floods. So it was pretty much "clean water". But time and seasons ... speckling is plainly visible.

I will see if there are some simple and in-house safe options to minimize contamination risk - - - page by page. Winter in Canada is not so conducive to outdoor experiments.

Well... I do seem to remember a tip somewhere about cold storage to halt deterioration. But I'd check it out first - trial-and-error might not be the best route!.

We are looking to sell this house, and move about 800 miles. Just a bit east, ya know. So I will have to deal with this fairly soon so other clearances and stuff can also happen.

I'll take a fairly close look and see what the fully dried state is, and see what I can do from that. But certainly, atleast a little mask while "looking"

...painter's mask and rubber gloves...

The allergy hazard is one I'd be concerned about.

For items its important to conserve, temporary storage in a ziplock freezer bag per item after careful drying with a tsp or so of epsom salt to further dry and arrest microbial rot.

Other than official documents, perhaps a photocopy would suffice, if official documents, inventory with particulars, including form title, number and date against a need to obtain an official copy.

One of my neighbours started burning all the paperwork from his failed business - no idea how much, but I complained after he'd been doing it for 3 days - 24 hours a day - as the smoke meant I couldn't hang my washing out.

Washing hanging at this time of the year quickly becomes "freeze dried".

I have a fully constructed, wood-burning, insert. With concrete and brick chimney that exhausts about 25 to 28 feet above lawn levels. Generally not a problem for anyone, having from 50 to 110 feet from us to any neighbor.