Tenant scheduled a repair without notifying me first

[Dana R.]

I have a tenant who emailed me at my work e-mail account on Christmas about a leaking garbage disposal that didn't seem to work anymore and that they had scheduled Roto Rooter to come fix it. 

Normally, I know that a leak like is the its the landlord's responsibility and the landlord has to pay to get it fixed. 

But, in this case, a part of me feels the tenant should pay for that repair because the tenant didn't come to me first or give me enough time to get it fixed before they called in Roto Rooter. 

I have my own plumbing contact that I've used for years that I would have called in to fix it. That company has always been reliable, and I'm sure would have been cheaper than Roto Router which has to pay for advertising. 

Instead, my tenant emails my work email account, dana@Xcompany, even though I've told them before not to email that account because of a situation like this. 

Instead of the the tenant calling me or emailing me at my non-work email account, the tenant emailed my work email on a day when I obviously wasn't going to be working there that day.

[Elizabeth Colegrove]

What does your lease say? My lease says all repairs must be approved by the landlord. Therefore in this situation, I send an email back. Thank you for notifying me regarding the repair. We appreciate you fixing the repair at your expense. If this happens in the future please contact me at X so we can have this problem remediated in an expedite manner through a company we have a contract with! 

This way you in a polite manner

1) thank them for taking care of the issue

2) address it at their cost

3) address the of the correct contact

4) identify tha tyou have your own repair people