How do you NOT know your toilet is overflowing?????

[Amanda_Bennett]

And I mean for HOURS and HOURS!

A second floor apartment had his toilet overflowing for hours, if not the whole day yesterday! He called me at 8:23pm and told me the handle on his toilet broke and it was running for a "little" while and asked if I could send maintenance over to fix it.

I sent maintenance over and he replaced the handle, said it looked a little wet, but the guy was cleaning it up with some towels, and maintenance took the shop vac over and got a little water (less than 1 gallon) out of the hallway carpet.

At 10:08 I was woke up by a fire truck with it's lights on flashing in my bedroom window. I looked out and saw they were trying to get into a bottom floor apartment. It's a vacant unit we are working on so I threw my robe on and went out. By the time I got out there (like maybe 30 or 40 seconds) they had bashed in the door and were stomping around in the apartment. They took the smoke detector off the ceiling, tossed it on the floor and walked out got in their truck and left! REALLY!!!!

The upstairs toilet had overflowed so much for so long it had flooded the downstairs apartment and caused the smoke alarm (electric one) to start beeping and someone had called the fire department!

Serious flooding! There was an inch of water throughout the entire 1075 square foot apartment! The ceiling was "leaking" and sheetrock was falling from it! Maintenance got the shop vac and got 7 or 8 full tanks (it holds about 5 gallons) of water out of the apartment before I got the water extraction company here!

 

[Dopey]

First of all - shame on the fire department for their lack of respect to you. Report it to their higher commander. Please.

Second of all - my toilet ran for several hours and I was out of the house. The damage went through two floors before I got home.

Third - unless I'm in the room and have my hearing aid in I can't hear water running or leaking.

Fourth - thank you for doing the job that you do. It's a horrible job and you get no respect...I'm sorry.

 

[SilverSage]

What a disgrace! When we look on fire fighters as heroes, it is sad to see that some of them lack common courtesy.

I'm so sorry your tenants clearly underestimated or covered up the real situation! Ugh!

 

[Birdman666]

Lastly - depends on where it was leaking from... if you flushed and saw it then Yeah, tenant fault.

If you didn't see or hear it, and it was coming from underneath? You find out about it when the ceiling below you begins to sag.

That's why we have homeowner's and/or a commercial insurance policy.

Report it to your claims office.

 

[RavensGryf]

OMG how awful Amanda! That made some real structural damage looks like. I hope the whole situation gets taken care of asap and as smoothly as possible!

 

[Amanda_Bennett]

What a disgrace! When we look on fire fighters as heroes, it is sad to see that some of them lack common courtesy.

I'm so sorry your tenants clearly underestimated or covered up the real situation! Ugh!

I will be talking to their boss. They ripped the screens off all the windows and just tossed them aside, then used a "battering ram" to break in the door. Tore the door jam to splinters! They could see in the windows, they knew it was vacant! The hallway light was on inside, they could see there was no smoke! They were just too fast for me to wake up, figure out what was happening, get my robe and slippers on and get out there to stop them.

Then they just got in their truck and drove away! No "sorry false alarm" nothing! They didn't try calling the office phone or the emergency phone (both numbers on the office door) they saw it was water damaged, they knew the door was wide open!

I've always had oodles of respect for firemen, policemen, servicemen, etc... It's just sad that these guys have no respect!

 

[Dopey]

Argh!! One bad group can give a whole lot of counties a bad name.

 

[Ann333]

This is why i stopped renting! I guarantee he knew but just didnt care...its not his house why SHOULD he care? Renters can be SOOOO inconsiderate!

 

[Amanda_Bennett]

He knew and has admitted as much to me and the maintenance man. He was home all day, but didn't call until after 8pm.

He may not have known he was flooding the downstairs apartment, but he knew his toilet was broken and water was running out of it. Where did he think the water was going?

I do have to put some of the blame on my maintenance man though. He was upstairs at approx. 8:30ish but didn't go in the downstairs apartment to check anything? He should have known to check downstairs, he has been in this business for over 10 years.

 

[Sunset_Chaser]

Whoa, what a mess! Some people just have no idea what they are supposed to do with the head on their shoulders..... Decoration?

 

[Dopey]

Ok - he should have known but you don't know what was really on his mind. Maybe he has a sick kid or he wasn't feeling well.

The firefighters really have no excuse. However, you will have to hear their side of the story. Should be interesting and I hope it's worth telling to us.