tenants moved out, carpet dirty, their water soaked our ceiling

**windman** · 01-10-2010, 10:35 AM

My parents are old and sometimes unable to come to correct conclusions. We own a house in full that we rent. The previous tenants moved out, because it was one after the other of bounced checks. I had kept telling my parents they didn't have to settle for that, and that they could do better. they put up with so much crap just because they believed they couldn't do better.

It was just yesterday afternoon when we had our rent house carpet cleaned. The house had electricity, but no heating. My father is under the erroneous belief that they should have supplied enough heating to the house necessary to dry up the carpet up and down stairs. He is also saying, there is no way he'd be able to establish, our very damaged roof, was a result of the carpet cleaners. He's obviously never heard of filing a report with the sheriff the day after the damage is done. I'm very frustrated because it will cost us alot of out of pocket money to pay for what the carpet cleaners did. my father will double check as well to make sure it wasn't a busted pipe. I was hoping some experienced homeowners can share some feedback which i will relay in the form of a url to my father, about who should pay for our severe damage. if it is me that is wrong, then i'll accept that, this whole situation seems very black and white to me. I don't believe you can have any expectation that running heat will soak up all the water that actually went down due to gravity, and ruined our ceiling.

My mom, stresses out, because both my parents get it stuck in their head that they are always right, no matter how wrong they are. I don't want my parents playing the role of victim, like they did with our previous renters, and feel they have no recourse to correct action.

thank you for your time and feedback.

**Greg** · 01-11-2010, 06:07 AM

Carpet cleaning equipment sucks up the water as fast as it puts it down so the only way they could have done it was if their equipment was broken. If their equipment was broken then they should pay for fixing the problems they caused.

But first, you need to find out if there is a broken pipe. No heat = broken pipes. It is possible that when they turned on the water to run their equipment the broken pipe leaked and when the turned off the water the broken pipe stopped leaking. This would be your responsibility.

**windman** · 01-11-2010, 07:39 AM

it indeed was a broken pipe. we've got plumbers on that. the way my parents judged the carpet cleaning was just disturbing. it was my fathers belief that was it, and that he couldn't establish it was them (he actually thought that), or he blamed himself for not having AC heat. i'd feel so much better if my parents could come to correct conclusions especially with the rent house.

anyone have any idea what it would take to repair a ceiling damaged by plumbing that had gone bad due to the cold weather ? there was water spillage behind the toilet. our ceiling needs help and i could use the wisdom of other homeowners to pass on to my parents in getting it repaired.

thanks so much for the response its nice to get .02 from those who have experience.

**TexasLeaseHouses** · 01-31-2010, 02:05 AM

Wow. Sorry to hear that this rental situation turned bad. Glad you got those awful tenants out & found out the source of the problem whether than having to wonder forever.