Landlord Expected me to pay for Sewage Cleanup

By Cassandra

I have lived in my current triple wide home in Oregon for 10 months with my fiance and daughter.  Last month there was a sewage back up, my fiance is a maintance man that can fix just about everything, but he was not about to touch the sewer line because he knew that would take a plumbing crew to clean up. The rain and snow did not help matters in any way because there has been a lot of flooding during the winter.  We called our landlord to let him know about this; he told us that he had called a plumbing company to come look at it; we would very much like to report this company because we know that they have caused problems in the past for other residence (they are the only plumbing company in Tillamook); they cleaned out the sewage tank. We were told by our landlord that the cost was $425.00 to clean.  Our landlord was expecting for us to pay half the price; we were astounded that he even had the nerve to even ask us for that. We have not been the only tenants at this home in the last 4 years; there has been at least 3 other residence before us.

We know that our landlord was told by the plumber and the man who came to clean it out by saying to our landlord that the sewer line was cleaned out 4 years ago and should last for a total of 10 years. We were told by that same man who came out and he told us that it was about time for it to be emptied. The sewage tank is the smallest that is able to be acceptable for this property out in the country.

We want to know what we can tell our landlord, who by the way lives in Florida, when he comes over to Oregon in the summer?  We get to pay $100 less for rent because my fiance keeps the home maintained.  This home needs a lot of work and we are using more than $100 per month to keep it maintained. We know that the outside structure of the home really needs to be fixed with new plywood and to be painted. 

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