My kitchen sink won’t stop running–a situation that developed out of the blue while I was doing the dishes. The shut off valve is ineffectual, and so is twisting the knobs until I’m blue in the face. I wouldn’t be so upset if it wasn’t hot water that was being wasted. I have no hot water to take a shower. And I’m single-handedly returning Richmond back to its water deficit.
My repeated calls to the landlord’s cell have been fruitless. Granted, he’s probably asleep right now, but that doesn’t allay my frustration. We don’t have an on-call building super or handyman. So I’ve called a 24/7 emergency plumber. Hopefully they can get here before the entire James River runs through my pipes.
I’ve never been in such a situation before. Am I doing everything right? My plan is to subtract the plumbing bill from my rent, but I’m worried my landlord will get all pissy for not waiting for him to send his “guy”.
Yes, but they are often frozen in position because they aren’t often used, and if you can get them to turn, the seal washer is hard or eroded and won’t shut it off, anyway.
That’s when I trudge to the basement and shut the whole building off, which tends to piss off other tenants, so it’s best done infrequently.
At first the dag blammet thing was frozen. Then I got it unfrozen with the sheer strength of desperation, only to discover that the stupid thing doesn’t do squat.
Yeah, that’s an emergency. Something similar happened to us once, only it flooded the apartment a bit before the real plumber came (the non-real handyman guy was the one who did it in the first place).
It’s not a flood, but it’s something that needs to be addressed. Hopefully you were able to leave voice mails to the landlord to prove you attempted to contact him/her before calling a plumber yourself. Don’t just deduct the plumbing bill from rent; discuss with landlord first.
So about eleven hours after the torrent started, the plumber finally came and fixed it. Thank goodness. I couldn’t sleep at all last night with that water running.
But now the property manager (who I wrongly thought was the landlord) seems to want to jerk me around, telling me I should have waited for him to send his guy. He finally called five minutes ago, after I left four messages on his voice mail all through the night and early morn’. Basically he’s telling me I should have been passively sitting around for God knows how long, watching water and gas that I’m paying for literally go down the drain, until he could get back to me. 'Cuz the guy would have fixed it for $20 rather than the $200 I ended up paying Roto-Rooter. If that’s the case, maybe he should answer his phone when it rings. Or at least give his tenants the phone number where we can get help with emergency repairs.
I’m not looking forward to my utility bill for this month. I’m in such a bad mood!
This is what sucks so bad about class relations… the deck is so stacked!! The wealthier individual (landlord) gets to dictate when/how repairs are done which affect the life of the poorer individual (renter). Now monstro has a water and electric bill caused by the irresponsibility of the landlord, but which monstro is responsible to pay! And now it looks like the irresponsible but wealthy individual is going to try to get out of paying the repair bill for his/her own property because the renter took responsibility for the situation and got help while the landlord’s minion sat on his ass. :rolleyes:
Oh bullshit. MAIL (with a copy) a letter to your landlord explaining the situation and let him/her know that you’ll need to discuss payment for the service, etc and that you’re not happy with how it was handled. Fuck that guy, you cannot let water run for days. I would also let him know that you want to be reimbursed for whatever amount your electric and water bills are above the average norm. That’s not unreasonable and if they fight it, I really would move.
When I was a landlord, we were out of town/out of contact (before everyone had cell phones) and a pipe burst at our house. The tenants went out and bought heat tape for the other pipes, called in an emergency service, got everything squared and when we got home we all discussed it. We (of course) paid for all of the repairs and knocked an extra $100 off their rent for making them deal with it. I mean, WTF? Emergencies are emergencies.
Keep copies of everything in case you end up in small claims court.
Be prepared to politely argue your case to the landlord. As Oregon sunshine points out, this is his employee who’s not responding in a timely manner to emergency calls. If I was the landlord, I’d want to know about that.
And yeah, I’d call that an emergency. Look at it this way - is it one of those things for which the landlord would be justified entering your apartment without 24 hour notice to fix if it happened while you were away? Then it’s an emergency. Check your lease and your local renter’s rights laws - they often list specific items that are considered emergencies, and uncontrolled water is usually right there in print.
My fiance made an interesting point which is worth pointing out to the property manager and the landlord. If the faucet had been running faster than the drain could handle it, your sink could have overflowed and serious damage could have been done. I assume monstro would have mentioned it if that were the case.
You made a good faith effort to contact him so the problem could be resolved in a timely matter. I’d say you’re in the clear. Besides, while waiting for your property manager to send out someone more than 12 hours after the problem happened may have wound up saving the landlord money, but it would have cost you even more money for the water use. Document everything and make it clear to the property manager that you’re not prepared to back down and that you would have been perfectly willing to use his guy if you’d received any indication that your messages were received and that he was aware of the problem. You might also want to talk to the landlord directly. As usual, you did just the right thing.
I make enough money to own my own property, but for several reasons I choose to rent. I have rented housing most of my life. While there are some truly asshole landlords out there, MOST of them will respond positively to a good-faith effort to contact them, then the renter dealing with the emergency on hand. Keep in mind the “property manager” is NOT the landlord! The landlord will often appreciate a tenant dealing with an emergency immediately because it will save on property damage that the landlord will have to pay for sooner or later. The “property manager” may or may not have the intelligence to make that distinction between “it can wait” and “must be done NOW!”
Latest whacko thing where I currently live was a part of a tree going through the roof into a vacant 2nd floor apartment that smashed a toilet and resulted in not only major flooding upstairs but flowed down into that floor/my ceiling and resulted in my kitchen flooding. Quick action on my part - despite having to force my way into the upstairs apartment - brought the water to halt before irreparable damage was done. Not only did I NOT have to pay for any damages I inflicted while halting the flood, the landlord paid to have my kitchen cleaned up, too. Thank Og someone was home at the time.
Just sitting there, waiting, not only would have caused property damage in at least two apartment units, it also could have started an electrical fire that brought the whole building down.
All of which is offered as an example that the tenant/landlord relationship is not always at odds.
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Monstro **needs to discuss the matter in a civil manner with the landlord if the property manager is being unreasonable and/or stupid.
Agreed that monstro needs to check out vagaries of the Landlord Tenant Act, or whatever it’s called in VA, to explore salient portions which apply.
Also, if the Property Manager is the point of contact, they have a degree of empowerment to act in lieu of the owner. PM’s regularly contact me for repairs, and I’m paid by them. They’re taking a piece of the rent as compensation for their management services, which includes near seamless availability.
His claim of a $20 fix is freshly pulled from his bum, monstro. I don’t know any plumber who will climb into their truck and turn the key for $20, including me.
For the future, and perhaps for other renters reading this thread, talk to your landlord about what to do in the event of another plumbing problem. When we signed our lease, our landlord (he’s fantastic, btw!) gave us a sheet of paper with his phone numbers, email, address (he’s two streets over, so it’s a possibility to reach him in person), as well as the contact info for his preferred plumber, as well as a 24/7 alternate, and then, at the bottom, the statement that if any of that doesn’t pan out, we should just use common sense to solve the problem and payment arrangements would be made afterwards. I think there’s the number for an electrician too.
We haven’t had to use it, thankfully, but having all of this in writing the day you move in makes it easier to deal with any possible future emergencies.