Apartment Question

Factual Questions
1

A couple of weeks ago my apartment flooded due to a leaky pipe upstairs. Luckily none of my stuff was damaged, but they had to bring in three huge blowers and a de-humidifier to dry out my carpet and the walls. They all ran without interruption for five days.

My question is this: Since the damage was to the apartment’s property, not mine, and since the damage was not my fault, am I within my rights to expect the apartment company to reimburse me for the electricity it took to power those huge appliances for nearly a week?

I’m sure my electric bill will be much higher than normal due to this problem, and it seems on a ‘gut check’ level that it’s not right to make me pay to run the equipment to fix a problem with their property. Obviously, IANAL, but I wonder if there’s any legal reason why they should have to pay it.

I did read my lease and it doesn’t really speak to this kind of issue, and I couldn’t get any hits in the archive. I’m googling as we speak, but does anyone have any experience in this area? What did you say to get the apartment to pony up for part of your electric bill? How hard did they fight?

2

I helped run an apartment complex and what we did in that situation was paid form the elecrtcity bill above and beyond the average of your monthly bill.

3

I had a similar situation once – my skeevy neighbors did a lot of damage to their place before they were evicted, and the contracters borrowed my electricity to run their power tools to fix the joint because Con Ed had shut off skeevy neighbor’s power. I asked my landlord about it and he said to simply send the electric bill and note the difference between that month and the average amount and he would pay it (which he did.) I don’t know if he was legally required to or if he was just being a nice guy.