What's fair? (Water Damage Question)

[Rain Man]

Thank you in advance for your wise counsel (bowing with hands in prayer position).

What's the fair thing in this situation?

We're on the fifth floor of an office building, and have a kitchen in our space. The sink is clogged for some reason, and the maintenance guy pulled the little u-shaped pipe off and put a bucket under the drain. Supposedly they're going to do the anti-clog thing on Monday. I think this happened Thursday morning, but don't recall.

We put a note on the sink not to use it.

Now, the dishwasher is next to the sink, and one of our administrative people started it up. I don't think she knew that the dishwasher drained into into the same drain, so when the dishwasher drained it dumped the water out under the sink, which then ran around on the floor and made its way down to the fourth floor. At that point it set off a fire alarm, so the fire department came out. I don't know the extent of the damage on the fourth floor. I would suspect it's not major considering this is your typical office building with cheapish walls and ceiling tiles, but I don't know if there's also any kind of fire department bill for a false alarm.

The maintenance guy just came up and told me that the landlord is planning to hold us responsible for water damage.

I want to be fair about this, but don't want to pay a bunch of money if it's a landlord deal. What thinks you?

[cdcox]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I'm not sure what's screwed up with the plumbing, but suspect it's got something to do with the first-floor restaurant since they got hit first and probably tend to have the biggest and messiest operation related to water.

Pipes with bullet holes tend to leak.

[ClevelandBronco]

Originally Posted by Dave Lane

I addition to being a master debater...

Is that two words?

[DanT]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Where's that thumbs-up thingie?

So this is weird, but we had the leak and the false alarm and stuff in the late afternoon, and then later that night the floor above us also had a water leak and a false alarm and the fire department had to come out again. Something is obviously wrong in the plumbing because the first floor had a problem last week. So the landlord was reasonable and more or less said, "Eh, it's all screwed up right now, so if you can just pay for what the dishwasher did (couple of hundred bucks), we have to fix all the other stuff anyway."

I'm not sure what's screwed up with the plumbing, but suspect it's got something to do with the first-floor restaurant since they got hit first and probably tend to have the biggest and messiest operation related to water.

I'm sure that whatever is right with that office building is something that a sufficiently incompetent maintenance staff can overcome, the way they conquered the fact that your dishwater used to get along with the neighbors downstairs.