Tenants Negligence Causes Damage

[Shelly Irwin]

My tenants placed a piece of furniture directly over the only heating vent in a bedroom next to the outside wall of building, and kept door to room closed since it was a storage room for them. During single digit cold winter night, the drain from upstairs apartment running down this wall froze and blew outside pipe joint open. The wall had to be cut open to unfreeze pipe and to fix blown joint. This is costing well over $1,000.00 to remedy. Is the tenant at all liable? Plumber said that wall would not have gotten so cold and pipe would not have froze if the vent had been freely blowing to allow heat to access wall area.