Bill tenant or let it pass?

[James Conaway]

Have a new tenant in one of my units in a fourplex. The unit has used appliances I purchased. The tenant moves in and notifies me that the dishwasher is leaking showing me a picture of suds all over the floor. I go over and check it out and ask what type of soap they used and they claim to use dishwasher tablets. I check the dishwasher myself and assume it must have a leak near the door. Part of the issue could be they speak broken English so there could have been a gap in my understanding of what they did before I called the appliance repair guy.

I call a appliance repair company to come out and they state the customer is using too much soap/wrong type of soap and educate them on what not to do. This education costs me $80.

I feel like they are responsible for the issue that lead to the $80 service call, and should pay it. I also like these tenants and it could have been a sincere mistake on their part on not knowing how to use the dishwasher and used too much/wrong type of soap.

The question is should I:

1. Let it pass and just eat the cost and warn them next time if something like this happens they are responsible for the total cost if the issue is due to their mistake?

2. Demand they pay half the cost of the service call? (Split the cost)

3. Demand they pay the full cost of the the service call?