What is the name of your state? --California
Our two bedroom apartment got flooded, it was started from the bathroom in the apartment next door which was vacant at the time this happened. One of our bedroom got wet, everything in the walk-in closet had to be removed, and everything in that bedroom, the entrance and half of the living room was soaked. This happened on Friday night, the rental office left us a blow dryer, they used vacumm to suck some of the water out, that was all they had done that night, when we got so upset and talked to the rental office, all she said was "oh, you signed the lease that says when things like this happened, the property owner was not responsible for damage, that was why we require you to buy renter's insurance, you should call the insurance company for damage, oh, if the blow dryer gets too loud at night to sleep, you could turn it off and start it again the next morning."
The next two days were weekends, nobody came to do anything, we just refrain our toddler from going to places, crawling, etc. she was scared of the loud blow dryer, kept saying "mommy, I am scared." she made me hold her to pass the living room, the hall, etc.
Monday, the rental office people came to take pictures, we did that too. They unwillingly cut off some of the padding underneath the carpet, but refuse to replace the carpet, telling us the water was not contaminated, and the carpet was new (we had lived there for 1 and half years already, and it was not brand new before we moved in). Finally, they dried the place, replaced partial padding, and shampooed the carpet where we could get things out of the way. They declined to pay us any damage for the inconvenience we incurred that week, and told us we were lucky not the whole apartment was flooded (what kind of bull**** was that?)We didn't pay $1800 a month for this messy place, we didn't cause the flood, why should we suffer? The flood next door happened two months ago, at that time, our apartment wasn't affected, or we didn't know if there was any. Our previous neighbor could not stay in their apartment, they moved to a hotel nearby and the rental office would not pay for that hotel expense. This time, the new tenants hadn't moved in yet, only one night before their move-in date, the rental office paid their hotel stay. For us, they refused to pay for any of our damage, any advice on what compensation (other than portion of the utility bill that was used to run the blow dryer and carpet cleaning service, a petty $20) should we get for all of this mess? I was so upset for their attitude, telling us we were lucky????????????? I want them to pay for all of their negligent. This situation was emergency, they left us two days over the weekend without anybody working on this? We and our neighbor were covered by the same lease clause, why did they pay the new neighbor for their hotel stay, not the previous neighbor, not us?
If they don't pay us, I want to go to small claim court, how should I go about doing that? and how much could we get, want to weigh the cost effectiveness before I do that.
Our two bedroom apartment got flooded, it was started from the bathroom in the apartment next door which was vacant at the time this happened. One of our bedroom got wet, everything in the walk-in closet had to be removed, and everything in that bedroom, the entrance and half of the living room was soaked. This happened on Friday night, the rental office left us a blow dryer, they used vacumm to suck some of the water out, that was all they had done that night, when we got so upset and talked to the rental office, all she said was "oh, you signed the lease that says when things like this happened, the property owner was not responsible for damage, that was why we require you to buy renter's insurance, you should call the insurance company for damage, oh, if the blow dryer gets too loud at night to sleep, you could turn it off and start it again the next morning."
The next two days were weekends, nobody came to do anything, we just refrain our toddler from going to places, crawling, etc. she was scared of the loud blow dryer, kept saying "mommy, I am scared." she made me hold her to pass the living room, the hall, etc.
Monday, the rental office people came to take pictures, we did that too. They unwillingly cut off some of the padding underneath the carpet, but refuse to replace the carpet, telling us the water was not contaminated, and the carpet was new (we had lived there for 1 and half years already, and it was not brand new before we moved in). Finally, they dried the place, replaced partial padding, and shampooed the carpet where we could get things out of the way. They declined to pay us any damage for the inconvenience we incurred that week, and told us we were lucky not the whole apartment was flooded (what kind of bull**** was that?)We didn't pay $1800 a month for this messy place, we didn't cause the flood, why should we suffer? The flood next door happened two months ago, at that time, our apartment wasn't affected, or we didn't know if there was any. Our previous neighbor could not stay in their apartment, they moved to a hotel nearby and the rental office would not pay for that hotel expense. This time, the new tenants hadn't moved in yet, only one night before their move-in date, the rental office paid their hotel stay. For us, they refused to pay for any of our damage, any advice on what compensation (other than portion of the utility bill that was used to run the blow dryer and carpet cleaning service, a petty $20) should we get for all of this mess? I was so upset for their attitude, telling us we were lucky?????????????
I want them to pay for all of their negligent. This situation was emergency, they left us two days over the weekend without anybody working on this? We and our neighbor were covered by the same lease clause, why did they pay the new neighbor for their hotel stay, not the previous neighbor, not us?If they don't pay us, I want to go to small claim court, how should I go about doing that? and how much could we get, want to weigh the cost effectiveness before I do that.