Apartment leaking water

Kamiro

A couple of months ago, I came home to part of my kitchen ceiling on the ground and a bit of water. I called my landlord to get it fixed and it was handled pretty quick. Two weeks ago, my kitchen ceiling was leaking water by the light fixture. It was steadily dripping water for about 30 minutes, enough to fill a big pot about 1/8th of the way. I left the pot there and noticed it had filled up another 1/8th the following day. Called the landlord, and it was "fixed" (not sure what they did) after a couple of days.

Today, I come how and now my bathroom ceiling is leaking. Already let my landlord know.

Now, my questions. Am I protected if for some reason ANOTHER leak springs in my living room/bedroom and damages my bed/laptop/tv/etc? Should I be getting rental insurance ASAP? Is there anything else I should be doing?

I'm in one of the basement apartments of a 6-7 story apartment building in Virginia.

Heir

You should have rental insurance always.

Skeith

Get the insurance and keep on your landlord.

iRevert

Rental insurance ASAP, get after your landlord and for the love of all things holy start documenting this. Photos of leak areas, write down dates of the leaks and when you called or emailed the landlord and when they told you it was "fixed". If they email or write you a letter saying it was fixed hold on to it.

Document
Document
Document

Also I'd recommend a nice watertight box for important documents and such just to be on the safe side.

zepherin

It's hard to track down leaks, because It could be any apartment in your building,

But seriously rental insurance from most companies in NOVA are like 15 bucks a month get it.

zepherin

Kamiro wrote: »

Yeah, I took a video of the current leak (still going). I'll keep the note they posted on my door that said they fixed the previous problem.

As for rental insurance, where do I start? I don't have car insurance, since I don't drive and that seems to be the popular way to get renter's insurance. Should I just pick a random insurance provider? Currently I'm looking at online quotes for GEICO, but if there's a better one to look at I'll just start there.

I use usaa, if you come from a military family i would get that. Geico is fine so is Allstate. What is the ballpark value of everything you own?

Jasconius

i wouldn't even leave your electronics out uncovered if I were you

it sounds like this place has massive water damage problems

rental insurance is everywhere but you need to make sure about what is and isn't covered, because if they sniff out that your ceiling was already rotten and bloated with water before your policy began, you can expect a bumpy road to reimbursement

schuss

Geico doesn't even write their own I don't think, so it's half allstate half Liberty Mutual. Rental insurance is mainly about covering your stuff and things you do to wreck the apt.

zepherin

schuss wrote: »

Geico doesn't even write their own I don't think, so it's half allstate half Liberty Mutual. Rental insurance is mainly about covering your stuff and things you do to wreck the apt.

Honestly I've always a proponent o renters insurance because it provides liability coverage in case someone gets hurt in your apartment.

Gdiguy

schuss wrote: »

Geico doesn't even write their own I don't think, so it's half allstate half Liberty Mutual. Rental insurance is mainly about covering your stuff and things you do to wreck the apt.

This was my experience as well (I have auto through Geico, but when I looked for rental insurance they sent me to an affiliate... which sadly meant that the usual bundling discounts weren't available)

I have State Farm currently, and I haven't had any real issue (but obviously with insurance everything's great if you have no claims).

Siska

With water damage it's really important that you read the fine print with insurance. Damage from busted pipes, leaking roofs and flood damage can be covered separately or excluded. Especially anyone that owns an aquarium and rents really needs to make sure that their renters insurance would cover a malfunctioning/broken aquarium setup. Since if it's not the damage is something the renter would be liable for.

zepherin

Siska wrote: »

With water damage it's really important that you read the fine print with insurance. Damage from busted pipes, leaking roofs and flood damage can be covered separately or excluded. Especially anyone that owns an aquarium and rents really needs to make sure that their renters insurance would cover a malfunctioning/broken aquarium setup. Since if it's not the damage is something the renter would be liable for.

From what I've seen renters/home owners insurance generally covers broken pipes and malfunctioning water heaters, because they can go back to the apartment complex, or the company that makes the water heater and say you didn't maintanence this properly, your water heater was faulty and sick their lawyers on them to recover some of the money, and the apartment complex says we have insurance for this and the 2 insurance companies fight it out, but yes check your coverage make sure that water damage is covered, you are probably not covered for weather related flooding though, so if you are in a basement apartment that may be a consideration, if your on the 3rd floor, fuck it roll the dice.


But yes, make sure your insurance covers that sort of thing. Or else why bother getting rental insurance.

schuss

Yeah, Renters is completely different in terms of policy exclusions from homeowners because the subrogation option exists (Subrogation is when they pay out for you then collect from someone else they deem responsible). Therefore things like Floods and leaky roof issues, they'll go after the landlord for not fixing things/maintenance. This is also why most landlord insurance is slightly different and has much higher liability limits.

zagdrob

I'll echo the importance of reading the fine print in your renters insurance.

I'll also suggest - and this generally is a good idea in general, if a bit of work - you do an inventory of items that you own. You may be surprised at how much your furniture, clothes, and electronic devices are actually worth and would cost to replace if damage. You estimated $10,000, but the replacement cost could be significantly higher.

As an example, we had one load (not even a full load) of laundry ruined because another tenant had melted a crayon in the dryer - just a couple pairs of pants, my wife's scrubs, and some shirts, and it was over $600 in replacement cost once we itemized it. A $10,000 policy probably would be fine for a single guy starting out with some basic furniture, but if you and your significant other have lived somewhere a while, bought furniture and some nice electronics, and have decent closets, you could be looking at significantly more.

Having worked with adjustors / valuation, it's surprising how many people aren't really covered for the stuff they own, and after a catastrophic fire / accident / etc end up with far less back than it would cost to replace their stuff. If you have any items that are particularly valuable, find out if you should have a separate rider to cover those items. Something like a $2500 gaming rig would probably be a good candidate for a rider, as would your grandfather's Rolex or something like that.

As another note, if you have car insurance, you may want to contact your insurance provider. Lots of companies provide a 'multiple plan discount' that could make your renters insurance effectively free. Because of how much we paid in car insurance, when my wife and I lived in an apartment we actually paid less in our combined renters + car insurance premiums than we did in car insurance alone. It was a strange situation, but it may be worth looking into.

iRevert

While you are doing that start putting down serial numbers of electronic items you own as well as (if you have a camera) taking photos of them. Always helpful to have a record in the event of theft and a photographed inventory is fucking amazeballs if you ever have to go to court and show them the items before (and after).

iRevert

No

I mean flip that bitch over and write down the serial number so if someone ever steals it you can hand an itemized list with the serial numbers over to the cops and they can then go to local pawn shops and say "if some motherfucker walks in trying to sell this with this serial number call us". It takes four seconds of your goddamn life and if its ever stolen you just increased your chances of having it recovered/identified from almost zero to some chance.

To say "Oh I have a slim xbox 360 that I ordered from newegg that has an order number of 8012354" means jack and/or shit. If you say "I have a xbox 360 slim with the serial number 3242452752375545325345" this means that it can be identified and potentially recovered.

A photo log of all your stuff is super helpful if there is a flood or fire or theft because you can go through and identify everything.

zagdrob

Also, just an important note about this inventory / record.

Make sure it's not only stored locally on something that could be stolen / ruined. I'd recommend at minimum putting a copy on Dropbox or a similar file storage location.

We've got a DVD and USB stick that both contain our inventory files and pictures in our safe deposit box at the bank. Either one would probably be plenty. If you don't have a safe deposit box, keeping a copy with your parents files probably wouldn't hurt.

MichaelLC

Also any important docs like SS or birth cert should either be somewhere else or in a sealed box you can easily grab. Ditto for important pics, etc. Would normally be overkill but three leaks is cause for concern.

For insurance any of the big ones are probably fine. We've been happy with Amica.

iRevert

MichaelLC wrote: »

Also any important docs like SS or birth cert should either be somewhere else or in a sealed box you can easily grab. Ditto for important pics, etc. Would normally be overkill but three leaks is cause for concern.

For insurance any of the big ones are probably fine. We've been happy with Amica.

They also make fireboxes that are water resistant so in the event of a house fire the water-hoses don't destroy it. I also have several pelican/storm cases for a similar use, though they won't stop fire if the place floods it will keep the contents dry.

Shadowfire

schuss wrote: »

Geico doesn't even write their own I don't think, so it's half allstate half Liberty Mutual. Rental insurance is mainly about covering your stuff and things you do to wreck the apt.

Depends on the state you live in. Geico partners with Travelers for mine, though I'm not the biggest fan of them. They're nice and all, but the billing is a bit of a nightmare.

Shadowfire

Kamiro wrote: »

I'd say about $10000 or so on the high end.

Are you sure? Completely sure? I'm sure you remembered TVs, computers, video games, and other electronics. You probably thought of kitchen equipment, too. But have you factored in other furniture? Your bed? Clothing? Books? Any jewelry given to you by family members?

I thought $10k would do for me as well until I started adding things up. We're now insured for around $35k.

Madpoet

Prices are based off of what it would cost to replace them. Which is why you might have undervalued the furniture - you can't always count on getting a great deal from a friend of a friend. What would it cost if you picked the items up at a consignment shop?

Shadowfire

Madpoet wrote: »

Prices are based off of what it would cost to replace them. Which is why you might have undervalued the furniture - you can't always count on getting a great deal from a friend of a friend. What would it cost if you picked the items up at a consignment shop?

Yea, you got it used before for $25, but Craigslist may not be able to fill that need again. Might want to look into claiming at least double if not more for the furniture. If a disaster happens you're going to be looking to replace most of those items quick, not waiting for a cheap deal.

floodedgirl

Just went thru a budted pipe flood in my apartment. READ THE FINE PRINT. Renters insurance ONLY coveres water in a natural disaster scenario. We lost everything. No reimbursement.