Landlord NOT Responding? What To Do During Plumbing Disasters

Handling plumbing disasters when they creep up on you can be easier said than done. Here’s some tips for you to keep logged away in a safe place of your brain to prevent you from having an anxiety attack when your landlord won‘t come to your rescue right away.

My household experienced a plumbing disaster a couple of days ago, and given I’m a renter, I made sure to contact my property management maintenance department immediately. Unsurprisingly, no answer. Even after calling five or more times, no help was going to come forward that same day. I did do the usual and submit a maintenance request online. I was assigned a contracted plumber fairly quickly, but I couldn‘t find the right number for this plumber ANYWHERE on Google. Just my luck.

I then thought that calling a plumber aside from who my property manager contracted would be a great idea so I could get this work done ASAP. We had two flooded bathrooms and with small kids that’s an added disaster waiting to happen. I need this fixed NOW! So I’m scrolling through the list of emergency plumbers in our area and guess what? After about calling ten or so of them, NOT A SINGLE ONE WAS AVAILABLE FOR THAT DAY. And if they were, they couldn’t perform the work because I‘m not the homeowner; or in another instance, one was ridiculously overpriced. JUST. MY. LUCK.

So now we’re defeated and thinking of ways to somehow get through the rest of the evening and night without a professional fixing the only two bathrooms we have. I carry my youngest baby boy along with me on a short ride up the road to one of the local hardware stores and pick up some essentials. Three various sizes of drain snakes, an extra plunger, and bug spray (completely unrelated to the plumbing issue, but I needed it anyway!). Time to get to work!

My husband went to work in the first floor bathroom where the major flooding was. Upstairs wasn’t too bad, so that’s where the main focus was. He continuously snaked and plunged the toilet and the shower (imagine seeing everything that gets flushed down the toilet coming up the drain into your shower, ugh!) until he realized nothing was really changing. Great. Later that night he went to check the downstairs bathroom and realized that a good portion of nastiness in the shower had went back down the drain, and the toilet started to flush properly. That’s a great sign! No more water was starting to flood the second floor bathroom and that toilet began flushing properly as well. Thank God for that! But we didn’t want to push our luck, so we made nothing but excrements were the only things being flushed. Tissue goes straight into the trash bin. Before the kids went to bed, surprisingly no one had a #2 waiting to be released, so that saved a lot of headaches.

It was a long day. Very, very long. Fortunately the plumber my property management contracted came the next day and everything was repaired, cleaned up and back to normal.

The following are those helpful tips I told you about in case you experience something similar:

1) Try every possible option you know of to get in contact with your landlord.

If you rent a private-owned home, your chances of getting in contact with your landlord may be greater than if you‘re dealing with a big company that manages rentals across various states (like mines does). Regardless, if your usual way of contacting someone regarding your maintenance issues falls through, search through any paperwork about your rental or doing a good-ole Google search, should help in finding other methods of contact so that you can get the help that you need.

2) If you know who your contractor is, DON’T wait for them to call you.

So you got in contact with your landlord somehow and they informed you of who’s going to come fix your plumbing problems, great! Most times your informed they’ll be contacted for you and they’ll give you a call to agree on a good time to come over. DO NOT EVER wait for them to call you if your maintenance issue is urgent. Call the contractor yourself so that you get their soonest availability.

3) Find your own plumber.

No communication AT ALL with your landlord? If you’re desperate enough, you may need to consider hiring your own professional. Searching online for an emergency plumber is very easy; getting to find one that’s available the same day you need them might be the hardest part.

4) Refrain from extensive DIY.

Using a snake and a plunger won’t do much damage, if any at all. If you screw something up with tools like those, you definitely don’t need to attempt to do major work on anything else that could be the underlying root of the problem. Leave that to the professionals. Plus there’s no need to continue messing up anymore chances you may have left at getting your deposit back when you decide to move out eventually!

5) Try to contain any flow of water that may be occurring continuously.

Bet you wish you kept all those old rags and towels right? Yep, they sure will come in handy, and this will definitely be one of those times! Make a blockade on the floor to keep water from flowing towards unwanted areas (such as carpeted floors) as best as possible. Better yet if the flow is catchable, like from a reachable pipe for instance, have a large bucket handy to contain the water and keep an eye on it so you can dump it before it overflows.

Best of luck to you, and hopefully you’ll keep your head on straight during any plumbing disaster your home may experience so that you won’t totally lose your mind!