should I clean the tiles in my basement or is there not worry about it? Thanks
in my case, i like the basement to be kept dry and empty. what is so valuable about ceiling tile? you can keep them outside the house, they are part of garbage. if you want to repair the roof, buy new tile because of color matching. ceiling tile is porous and a good hiding place of germs. germs travel throughout the house from the basement because the house is warm
Leave them alone. The best you could do with ceiling tiles in any case would be to vacuum them; ceiling tiles don't like moisture so you can't attack them with any kind of wet cleaning agents and expect to get away with undamaged tiles. Look around and see how often you see anyone ever treating ceilings. Bacterial threat from ceilings is effectively zero: the only things that ever get there have to be airborne in which case the ceiling is the least of your worries, and you don't ever touch them anyway. Anything that lands on and sticks to the tiles will dry out very shortly, it's a ridiculously inhospitable environment for life, bacterial or otherwise.
