Tenants washer flooded basement - who is responsible?

[Danielle Ratto]

My husband just went down in our tenants basement to replace the smoke detector and discovered water marks from a very obvious recent flooded basement. My husband texted them to see what happened in the basement and they said there was a small leak in the washer a few weeks ago, but it is now fixed. There is no way this was a small leak. The water marks are about a foot high and it is extremely damp in there. There was so much water that it seeped all the way over to our side of the basement (it only houses our oil tank and furnace and is accessed through the outside so we don't go down there much in the summer and didn't know it was wet). It is extremely moist down there and we have had a stretch of 90 plus degree weather with extreme humidity the last 2 weeks so we are now worried about mold. We believe it happened over 2 weeks ago and they never notified us. 

Who is responsible if we need to have servpro (or similar company) come and dry the basement out and check for mold? Our lease does state that if they fail to notify us of things needing maintenance and repair within a prompt manner they can be held financially responsible and We do require they carry renters insurance so I am wondering if it is something renters insurance would cover? 

Thanks! 

Editing to add we are a little more worried than usual (we would probably just run fans and a humidifier and clean up ourselves) but our forced hot air system comes from this basement and we have a newborn baby so really don’t want to be having mold coming through our air vents! 

[Andrew B.]

Document everything and take a million photos. Save those text messages as well. You will need to have someone come in and check it out, and bill tenant for the costs. I would absolutely not allow them to get away with it.