Tenant modified/tampered with HVAC and broke it... who pays?

[Rob Newsom]

Hi there - looking for some advice here.  Here are details:

Tenant was having some issues with HVAC

I arranged my HVAC repair man to visit property, but tenant reschedules/no shows 3 times before they finally connect up with each other.

When my repair man finally can do his diagnostic, he finds that the system (which I had installed brand new about 10 years ago) had been modified.  Somebody had bypassed the motherboard and directly powered the blower.  The result:  blower motor and motherboard were fried.  The tenant proudly told the repair man about his knowledge of hvac systems, and that he had made the modifications to try and fix it, but that it seemed to make things worse.

I told tenant that they would be responsible for the repair ($1300) since they damaged the system, and the tenant agreed.  (this was on a monday)

The repair work was scheduled for Tuesday.  On tuesday, the tenant "no showed" and reschedule for Friday.  On Friday morning they "no showed" and rescheduled for friday afternoon.  Then they canceled the appointment because an emergency came up.  I now find out that the tenant has (temporarily?) moved out because it's too hot (TX summer)... and they have finally told me that they don't have the money to make the repair.

The lease expires in two months.  I'm not sure whether to expect rent on June 1st or not.  If I had to bet, I'd say there's about a 50% chance that the tenant will skip town in the middle of the night, but who knows.

My question:  Am I right to expect/require tenant to pay for the repair for damaging the system?  Am I breaking any landlord/tenant laws by not fixing the AC, and thus rendering the house uninhabitable?  Until last friday (3 days ago), i had been expecting and attempting to get the hvac fixed, but now i'm seeing it's likely going to be me paying if it does get done.

On top of that, the tenant has quit responding to email/text/phone calls.  I live out of state and cannot coordinate the repair to take place without the tenants help.  

Any thoughts?  Any recommendations on a good real estate attorney in the houston area?

Thanks,

Rob