Hello Readers,
I thought I would share this with everyone since the situation irritates me so much. We performed a routine shower repair at a rental home in February and now I'm being subpoenaed to court. The shower repair was done properly and the shower is not leaking. The situation started where the deadbeat foreign investor landlord was refusing to fix his rental property. The tenant contacted us and we discovered a hole stabbed through the shower drain and silicone caulk dabbed onto the hole. We quoted the tenant a price, the tenant agreed to pay the bill and the problem was fixed right..........Well, over the next three weeks I get bombarded with calls from the landlord and the tenant. The landlord claims the tenant broke the drain and he is not paying for the repair...........WHY IN THE WORLD WOULD THE TENANT REMOVE THE SHOWER GRID DRAIN AND POKE A HOLE THROUGH THE SHOWER DRAIN! After several long repetitious conversations about shower drains, he eventually stopped calling. The tenant called and wanted more evidence that the shower drain was broken, so they could prove the drain was leaking and they did not cause the leak. So I tried to explain even more detailed the very simple process of water coming out of a hole in the drain and leaking through the drywall ceiling. The situation is similar to a windshield on a rental car cracking the day after your rent the car even though nothing hit the windshield and the rental car company wants to charge you for the window. When you return the car, you point out that you notice a windshield repair was attempted with epoxy and the epoxy repair where the crack started is obvious but barely visible unless you are looking for it. Who buys the windshield? I would say the rental car company.
In my case the hole in the shower drain was not visible unless the drain grate was removed. I think the landlord should pay the repair bill. However, maybe the tenant should have documented better the attempts made to contact the landlord and gave the landlord an opportunity to fix the problem on his own.
So now, I get a letter in the mail that I am being subpoenaed in court to testify that the shower drain needed to be repaired and the landlord should have fixed the problem. No one is paying me for my time to go to court! I get 5 days notice to go to court or pay a $300 fine. Why would someone spend their timing suing their landlord over a few hundred dollars? Cancel the lease and leave the house! I suspect they are avoiding paying rent and staying in the house as long as they can. Why would they waste my time to prove there point? Selfish people, a classic get something for nothing American philosophy. They have a written proposal and invoice of what was done. It will now cost me more in time, fuel and missed work to help the loser tenants and loser landlord. I should have met the tenant, looked at the leak, shook their hand, wrote them a check for $100 and told them to find another plumber to replace the shower drain. Now I'm stuck in having to go to court over peanuts. The following is the letter I am giving the Judge on Monday.
Invoice on 2-11-11 from 6997 Talkeetna Court, Atlanta, Georgia
The following is based on our invoice records, some notes on our scheduling system and a vague memory of speaking with a man who claimed to be the landlord of this property. I cannot remember every detail of every call. We receive an average of 200 service request per day and the phone calls are answered by Michael Whitman, John Austin and Linda Quimby. A technician was dispatched on 2-11-11 to locate a leak in the ceiling. The leak was determined to be from the shower drain. The shower drain flange appeared to have been punctured by a screw driver, but could have been a defect in the PVC drain flange. The opinion of the technician was that it was a screw driver puncture. . The only reason why a screw driver would have been in the area of the drain would have been to tighten the drain flange during originally installation or in an attempt at a previous repair. The puncture hole was crudely sealed with silicone and the hole was leaking. The silicone could have been there for several years or several weeks. There was no way to determine the length of time the hole was in the drain. Normal usage of the shower would not cause any puncture holes in the shower floor. We installed a new drain flange for the shower. Shower drain flange replacements and repairs are fairly routine due to the fact that the fiberglass shower floors flex and either the sealant squeezes out or the PVC flange cracks. The only way to tighten and replace the sealant under most PVC flanges is to use two opposing flat head screw drivers. I do not know, nor does anyone at our company, how the hole was made in the flange or who made the hole in the flange. God only knows the answer to this question. The only possibilities are the following: 1. The hole was either preexisting before the landlord bought the house, 2. The hole was created during the construction or remodel of the house., 3. The landlord tried to repair the leak prior to the tenant moving in or while the tenant was living in the house., 4. The tenant tried to fix the leak themselves and poked a hole in the shower.
Several months ago, I talked with someone multiple times, who stated he was the owner about the drain flange problem. I told him it had to be fixed and I would think that he was responsible for paying the bill. One of the responsibilities of a landlord would be to repair the plumbing system, unless otherwise stated in a rental agreement that the tenant was to make any repairs. He argued that the he should not be responsible to pay the bill. Perhaps, the landlord would have fixed the drain himself, but it is my understanding that a plumbing license is required to do plumbing repairs on a home unless it is your primary residence.
The only situation where I could see the landlord is not fully responsible is if the landlord was not notified prior to the repairs being completed. The landlord might be a licensed plumber, I do not know. I do not know what the law is on reasonable time for a landlord to respond to a leaking pipe in the ceiling.
Mike Whitman
Atlantis Plumbing
