Personal Property damage due to apartment maintenance work
Hi,
I live in Sunnyvale, California.
My apartment complex recently replaced all the toilets in the entire complex with the eco-friendly ones.
Our building's turn came over the long weekend and we were away. They changed the toilet on Thursday and a water pipe started leaking rapidly on Saturday early morning. This flooded the entire apartment and most of the our clothes and some of the furniture got permanently damaged.
The maintenance workers came in only 2.5 hrs. later when the water flew out of the apartment and they cleaned it up. But the carpets were still soaked and the clothes and furniture remained wet until we came in on Tuesday morning.
We roughly assess our loss to be about 2.5K for the garments and the furniture. I have a renter's insurance policy with a 1K deductible.
However, since this is due to toilet upgrade the apartment management did, it is entirely due to their human-error.
However, in my lease agreement, there is a clause that says:
"WAIVER OF CLAIMS AND INDEMNIFICATION:
............<lot of text>
Tenant hereby expressly releases Owner any and all liability or loss or damage to Tenant's property arising out of water leakage, borken pipes, theft or other criminal activity.
............<lot of text>
"
Do you think it would still be a good idea to file a 'small claim' against the apartment management as this has been caused due ot their faulty installation of th new toilet system?
Thanks so much in anticipation
Comment on JudyKayTee's post
Thanks again Judy. Yes, I have posted all the facts to the best of my knowledge and am not accepting any free rent for the time being. This is just an offer made my them.