Laundry Room in Basement/Liabilities

[Jordan F.]

Hi there.  I co-own a Bldg in the Los Angeles area.  Many if not most apartment buildings in the area have laundry rooms.  The building used to have one in the basement but the machines were removed a long time ago.  The point of this letter is what are the liability issues regarding having a laundry room in the basement (we have nowhere else to put it)?  How do we mitigate them? Tenants would be accessing this space through a side alley to which they never had access before.  How do insurance companies see these basement laundry rooms?  Is the additional revenue worth the additional liability?  There is a laundromat a few blocks away (less than a 5 minute drive).

I've already thought of a few things: put additional lighting outside and in stairwell, treads on stairs, and install railing so that there is a handrail on both sides.  Basement already has sump pump.  What do you all think?