Dealing with landlords

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I should like a bit of advice about a recent development.

I rent an apartment. It's an old building and my bathroom's carpeted, with wooden baseboards made of 8x1 lumber. Over the past few weeks I noticed that the carpet next to the bathtub was getting wet whenever I showered, and I thought I wasn't being careful enough with the splashing; but it still got wet no matter how careful I was.

Yesterday, I found a mushroom growing on the wooden baseboard.

When I looked more closely it turned out that instead of my splashing water out, the water was actually getting through faulty caulking around the tub, and running down the wall under the tub, naturally wetting the carpet and the baseboard nearby. I have no idea how mushroom spores got in.

So I sopped up the water that was soaking the carpet and went to scrub the baseboard, and it crumbled in my hands. The wood was totally rotten. I pulled off the rest of the twelve-inch section of baseboard and threw it away. Since there's no drywall behind the baseboard, that means I'm leaving a hole in the base of the wall about eight inches by twelve. Then I cleaned everything out and set a fan near it to try to dry it.

The problem is that this bathtub has probably been leaking water for a month or more for the baseboard to get that rotten; and I must not have noticed because the baseboard is painted and was already discolored when I moved in. I don't wear my glasses when I'm in the shower, and there's usually a trash can sitting exactly where the damage is located; so it took me a while to figure out what was happening.

Here are my options.
1. I can ask the landlord to make repairs. He may not believe me about the caulk, and may accuse me of carelessly splashing the water onto the carpet and causing the damage. That would forfeit my deposit, probably automatically.
2. I can try to make repairs myself. This would just be a matter of letting the fan sit there for a few weeks, letting the area dry, cutting some lumber to replace the baseboard, nailing it in place with the sort of nail that has a head that'll sink down flush with the wood, paint the baseboard, cut out the old caulk, and put in some new. I could do the repairs, no problem. Total cost would probably be less than $20. I don't know if the landlord would notice. I've already fixed a fallen shelf (including patching the holes in the wall) and replaced broken faucet handles without telling him, but this is more major.
3. I can ignore the problem and just try to keep the area as dry as possible until I move out. Again, deposit is forfeit, and the missing baseboard isn't exactly going to be invisible.

Thoughts?

I would just tell the landlord. I have dealt with leaky faucets and leaking ceilings I told my landlord. I always expect them to believe me. Tenants are supposed to tell their landlords of a problem in their unit. One of the handles once broke off our stove so we couldn't even use the big part of the burner but our landlord fixed it.

Tell the landlord of your problems with the bathroom and whatever else...and write these things down in a notebook. It may serve as a legal case against the Landlord in the future if the problems persist, get worse or the Landlord turns out to be truly
bad. In my community, four people died in an apartment building fire because the Landlord neglected to have the City Codes Department adequately check the building and these four "victims" were essentially trapped in the building with no rear exit to
escape the fire. In this case, the Landlord turned out to be a total "scumbag"...and he is now facing charges of criminal neglect.

It is the Landlord's responsibility to make any repairs, not yours. By attempting to "fix" any problems, you could create legal problems for yourself.

Do you like the place where you are currently residing? It sounds like you really need to look for another place to live.

Also, I seriously doubt that mushroom was edible...thank goodness, you did not eat it!

Callista wrote:

I took pictures of my ceiling once.

I used bleach when I cleaned out the wet area, actually, including the carpet...

Why I am worried that he may not believe me: Last year, the ceiling in my kitchen began to drip whenever the upstairs neighbors did dishes; and this happened several times and I called the landlord each time. The landlord kept insisting it was just the upstairs neighbors spilling water onto the floor, and I kept buckets to catch the leaking water, until one day I got ten gallons' worth through the ceiling, and the entire kitchen ceiling was sagging. Finally they fixed it... well, kind of; they removed the ruined drywall and left the hole there for a good couple of months before hanging new drywall.

So if they will let things get that bad and still insist people were being careless with water, it might stand to reason that if they blamed my upstairs neighbors for that leak, they may blame me for this one.

I didn't identify the mushroom. It's the same species that pops up in the yard after a rain; I'm not all that interested in mushrooms in general...

I can't move because this is the only place in town cheap enough to pay for on a disability check.

I think you should tell the landlord exactly what you just told us, about how you figured out what the problem was, what you've done so far, and why you couldn't have avoided doing what you've done so far. Then he'll have to either fix it, or give you permission to fix it, and subtract your costs for fixing it from the rent. Like Zsazsa said, repairs are his responsibility, and he has to at least know about them to be responsible for them, so it could cause problems for you if you go about repairing it without telling him.

I agree - write down everything that you have done, and take lots of pictures. Show them to your local rental board office, if you have one. In my area, (Canada) tenants have the option of paying the rent to the rental board if the landlord does not maintain the property. The board withholds the rent from the landlord until the problem is fixed. I lived in a 100 year old building and I have had similar problems with plumbling, loose plaster, so on. I loved that place, but I had to move out because the situation became unfixable. I would call the local rental authority and see what they can do for you.

for god's sake, rip up the carpet in the bathroom. that is soo nasty. of course you'll then see why it was put there in the first place, floor's probably rotten. no drywall behind baseboard, sounds like a firetrap. got smoke detectors? you should probably do a decent patch job just so you don't lose your deposit, and try find something better.

I do have a fire alarm, and the battery is fresh. I also have a fire escape plan. And a tornado plan. And a zombie plan (j/k!).

So I called the landlord, and I think I got lucky--I mentioned the caulk around the bathtub first, so I think he got the right impression. He's sending a guy to get it fixed and I'm waiting for said guy, who is at the moment forty-five minutes late.

I still want to just take an x-acto knife and a tube of caulk to it myself. It's not exactly rocket science or anything.

when he finally shows up, try and get everything else you can think of fixed too. It's likely they have alot of apartments so your's would not particularly stand out to them, whether or not you made some changes (i.e. minor) or attempted repairs, they probably won't notice.

He may not want to change the carpet for linoleum unless the subfloor is sound. Many times a small repair escalates into a major job, like opening a can of worms. He may not want to spend $500 on a bathroom floor.