I think I’m going to need to have some fairly extensive repair/renovation work done to the bathroom in my rented apartment in the near future. The landlady has some more plumbers coming over tomorrow evening to look, but the basic problem is as described here:
For the bathroom leak issue I mentioned, that’s been going on for at least two years. Apparently water is sometimes leaking into the downstairs apartment, so it’s more of a problem for them than it is for me. Every time a workman comes (which has probably been at least ten times now), they seem to just do a short-term fix before the neighbors start complaining about it again a few months later. The guy who came yesterday just showed me how to turn off the cold water supply to the water heater (I could have figured this out myself, but anyway that’s not a fucking solution, even if it works, which it didn’t because it’s still leaking, and I told them as such
). I think one of the pipes in the wall is broken and needs to be replaced, so it’ll be a pain if that ever happens.
The previous plumbers/workmen who’ve come over have been largely useless, but my troubleshooting suggests that the problem is with the greywater drainage system in the apartment/building – the water still leaks onto the bathroom floor when the hot water supply to the bathroom, and even the mains/rooftop tank supply to the entire apartment, is turned off, and when I’m not using any water in the apartment.
There’s also water visibly dripping from a former sink drainage pipe in the wall (which is currently unused after a previous incompetent plumber diverted the flow away from it, but it’s 50 cm off the ground and higher than any of the other drains in the apartment so there shouldn’t be any water in there at all), and possibly from between the tiles in the floor and/or wall. There are no apartments above me, though I believe there are water tanks on the roof that might be discharging water into a partially blocked drainage system, and this might be the culprit.
In any case, my guess is that fixing this will require them to rip off many of the wall and/or floor tiles in the bathroom, possibly remove the toilet and sink (because of how the bathroom is laid out), replace at least some piping, and reinstall/retile everything. I would imagine this to take at least several days.
Having workmen over and banging around all day will be annoying (I work from home and don’t tolerate noise/distractions well), but obviously I can’t stay in an apartment without a functional bathroom… so if this happens, what should I (or what can I legally) expect from my landlady in terms of compensation/rent reduction/alternative accommodation?
I have a fairly good relationship with my landlady, I’ve lived here for several years, and I don’t want to find somewhere else or cause her more problems than necessary. But I also suspect she won’t volunteer the idea of her paying for me to stay somewhere else, so I want to know what my rights are in this situation.
Thanks in advance for any advice/suggestions. 