Tenant used known broken toilet & caused water damage

[Byron Bailey]

Hi all,

Enjoying an annoying landlord experience and would love your advice.

Tenant reported the master toilet to be leaking slightly from the handle. We got a maintenance guy out to inspect and repair, but he didn't have the part so said he would be back next day to fix. After maintenance guy left, tenant proceeded to use the toilet and leave the house for a couple hours. Upon her arrival back to house, the toilet had sprung a profuse leak from within the tank and had leaked all over the floor, down thru the subfloor and the downstairs ceiling below.

We were able to get a water restoration company out that same night to set up fans which stayed in place for 3 days until moisture readings returned to normal. We ended up having to cut the affected drywall from the downstairs ceiling in order to get everything properly dry. Now drywall crew will have to come out to replace and refinish that portion of the ceiling.

This maintenance call devolved from a $130 fix to a $2000+ dollar fix because of a bonehead move from this tenant. (Unfortunately, our deductible is $2,500)

It should be noted that she sent multiple maintenance requests the week before this happened, including a crack in the fridge shelf, a broken HDMI cable, and not being able to light the fireplace. So clearly she's very proactive about spotting and reporting things that are wrong, but has no common sense when it comes to not exacerbating things. This tenant is paying $3,450 a month for rent.

Should we send her an invoice for a portion of this repair due to her negligence?