Carpet woes... advice?

Hi,

I own a approx 5 year old home and have had issues with water and carpet. One I is most likely due to an incident just after handover, the other happened just last month.

Short version: two wet carpet incidents, carpet damaged, how can I get help to fix it? Builder out of business. Insurance?

Long Version

5 years ago - I had just started moving in, we had Torrential rain in Melbourne at the time. I'd just started unloading boxes into the house and I could hear water running. Came into the lounge/dining area to see a waterfall coming down the walls inside. Turned out some genius hadn't put the roof tiles in their proper place and the run off from three of them was falling short of the guttering. I got onto the builder who fixed the tiles, then pulled back the wet carpet and left it that way to dry overnight before basically dropping it back on the following day (didn't use any tools to reattach it properly).

Being naive I went and got a vacuum from coles and spent the next day extracting water... but over the years the carpet has developed bumps were it looks to have stretched/expanded.

One month ago - we had the main hot water line burst in the wall. Luckily we were home and I turned it off straight away. Dried things as best I could and got a local plumber out to fix it. Worried though that the carpet might do what it did downstairs. Plumber has suggested making an insurance claim.

The Builder - was a franchisee of GJ Gardiner. Was let go by GJ for being pretty useless. Is not contactable and hasn't been for most of the 5 years.

Any advice appreciated.

Matt

Yep, insurance. They can organise proper drying and water extraction.

Later edit: just realised this was a month ago! You should have called them straight away. But try anyway.