Landlord flooded my bathroom and heating vents

By jennifer

I live in an old victorian where my landlords (Anne & George) live upstairs and two tenants (John & myself)downstairs. On Friday, January 18, 2013 I received a call from Anne while I was at work asking me when I left for work and if everything seemed fine. I told her I left at 8am and everything was fine. She inquired if I was having any trouble with my toilet and I told her it was fine that morning. She informed me that John had been having trouble and George was attempting to fix it. This was nothing new as we have had problems in the past with the plumbing. George apparently was using a hose attachment devise to blow out the clog via John’s toilet and ended up blowing all the sewage back into my apartment instead of back to the sewer system. He has done this before and said when he did it the first time, that he would never do it again. 

When blowing the pipes from John’s toilet didn’t work, he went under the house to blow the pipes from underneath and that’s when he saw water dripping from my side of the building. He then ask Anne to give me call. Anne called at 3:49pm to ask if she could enter and check my apartment. I told her yes and to please call me back with what she found. At 4:30pm she called back to inform me that the bathroom and be flooded and told me what her husband had done. I immediately left work and came straight home. 

When I got home Anne and her daughter Grace were cleaning up the mess. It had flood the entire bathroom and  came out into the hall carpet about three feet. Grace had cleaned up the mess while I tried to get as much "water" out of the carpet as I could. We then bleach the bathroom together.

Meanwhile George continued his work to clear the pipes and get both John and my toilet working. During the flood my floor rug, scale and shelving unit were damage. Anne told me to replace the items and to deduct the cost from my next month’s rent, including all receipts. She said that they would replace the heating vent in the bathroom and contact a real plumber to permanently fix the problem, but not until after Monday. Since it was Friday and Monday was a holiday, and she did not want to pay weekend or holiday rates. Anne only agreed to call the plumber at her daughter’s urging. 

Anne also said that at some point, though she did not specify, she would have someone replace the bathroom floor. She wanted to rip up the linoleum tile to let the sub-flooring dry, but I asked her to not to. She want to leave the sub-flooring bare until she could replace them. Though dealing with her int eh past I know could deb some time. The sub-flooring is particle board and there is no way I could sterilize the sub-floor so I could use my bathroom. The linoleum however old be bleached clean, so I could have use of my bathroom until she replace the bathroom floor. 

Once they got my bathroom cleaned up, they headed next door to John’s to clean his up as well. While I finished on my end, I noticed that there was water in heating vent in my dining room area. That vent connects to the vent in my bathroom. I call them back over to show them and George returned an hour later with a carpet shampoo machine that had a hose attachment to suck up the water. He put the hose down the bathroom vent and the dining room vent and sucked up as much water as he could. We pulled out about 4 gallons. When he was satisfied with that he had me turn on the heater to test the air flow. I have four vents total in my apartment. The two without water blew extra hard and the two with water were blowing lightly. He had a couple theories as to what was happening and said he would look into it. It was about 10:30pm, so he left saying that at least the other two vents worked, so I had heat. 

Well it is now Tuesday, January 22nd and when I arrived home the house smelled terribly of sewage and mold. The carpet in front of my bathroom is still a bit damp, which worries me. And when I turned on my heater I suddenly heard a strange noise. I went over to my dining room heating vent to hear the sound of lapping water. I couldn’t see water, but I could hear it and it sound like there was quite a bit. I called Anne at 7:10pm to alert her to the smell and water in the vent. She said she couldn’t look into tonight and that she will come down tomorrow. 

The smell is so bad that I have confined myself to my bedroom for the rest of the evening. Having asthma, I’m concerned that I may have breathing problems. I’m not sure who I should contact for help. I feel like there is a bigger problem here and my landlords are not reacting properly. Help! Any advice?

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