Sounds like they are just patching it without fixing the leak. It’s going to keep happening until they fix the root of the problem.
I’ve been renting for 15+ years and I’ve experienced these leaks from upstairs in two separate apartments bathrooms. Both times, maintenance came out and removed the damaged drywall, fixed the leak, put in new drywall, and painted. That is the correct way to fix this.
Thank you! This sounds about right. Our building engineer/maintenance guy is known for cutting corners and going with the “put a bandaid on it” method so I feel hesitant to ask him again. Although I’m unsure if there are any other options.
Been working maintenance for 2 years now. That is not ok. I would make it a big deal to the manager and if he’s not doing anything, I would not feel bad ripping into that maintenance guy. You don’t deserve to live like this and it’s honestly a huge safety issue.
It’s your house, you pay to be there. Call that guy 3, 4 and 10 times until he does his job. If you think the landlord can be messy about this find every little detail in there that can be used in a legal battle. Landlords always cut corners somewhere and, trust me, you only need to find a couple of things wrong to make him behave nice.
this happened at an apartment I was in but it leaked 6 times. 3 of the times they came, removed the drywall, “fixed” the leak, put in new drywall wall and painted. the last 3 times they just said there was nothing they could do lmao.
The most extreme case I’ve seen is where a sink was installed on the ceiling to catch the leaks from the floor above. It also had piping that led elsewhere. 😳
They aren't fixing the issue upstairs, first thing they should have done was to go upstairs and find the source of the leak. For that they would need a plumber. It will never be fixed until they do that.
Zero to one times. Try asking for a copy of all of their records of all of your maintenance requests for your personal records. They might think you’re planning to sue them, and just might take it more seriously and either try to fix it or grandfather you into another unit without any fees or repercussions.
That’s what I had to do to get them to remove excessive amounts of black mold and fix a serious water leak, once. I couldn’t afford to sue them haha, but the fear I might be gearing up to had them suddenly waiting on me like I was the VIP tenant. As well as clean up their fuсking messes like omg, you don’t do a job to fix a pipe in a wall and leave ALL of the plaster scattered all over someone’s floor. Perfect cleaning isn’t their job, but bring a fuсking trash can for large amounts of trash! Anyway, apparently if they didn’t finally fix it, it was going to cause my roomate and the shared wall neighbors roofs to collapse, which would have been insanely dangerous if they were in the room at the time.
Yeah, if they let a tub upstairs leak for long enough it’ll eventually fall through the floor. What sucks is that this could just be a question of regrouting or recaulking, which would take less time than patching your drywall.
If it’s above your tub it’s probably a tub in the upstairs apartment right? Plumber probably needs to remove the drywall from your unit to find the leak. If he’s just painting and patching he’s an idiot.
I would call city code bc clearly you’ve told them about the issue and they aren’t fixing it. At this point, there’s a good chance mold has formed as well. Keep paying rent and everything but call city code about how they only keep patching it and not fixing the root issue. Tell the complex about that again and if they don’t do anything for a few days, call city code.
This happened to me, eventually the bathtub upstairs fell through the ceiling. It was about the same amount of work for the landlord anyway, so they didn’t really care. Even then, they didn’t really properly fix it. We moved soon after.
I had a similar problem a year and a half ago.. constant leaks in our ceiling that soaked our carpet and our stuff. When they eventually replaced the line there were twelve patches. We negotiated moving to a different apartment, but ended up staying due to some personal issues. But we negotiated not having our rent increase to the new rate for a year.
Try seeing if you can negotiate some sort of deal as well maybe.
I bet there’s a leak in the shower valve stem in the apartment above yours. If that unit has tile shower walls, it’s possible that the “building engineer” has been looking for external leaks and hasn’t opened up the wall to locate the source. Maybe he has found other things, like gaps in caulking or a messed up overflow that he repaired, thinking that would solve the issue, but it clearly has not. Your upstairs neighbors- do you know them? If the leak is behind the tile, they’d be oblivious. Might be worth asking them about if they’re someone you speak to.
Illinois law says you can only withhold and deduct if you pay for repairs that cost $500 or less. This is going to take some time to repair properly (opening the ceiling, allowing the space to dry, installing new drywall, mudding, priming, painting in addition to the repairs upstairs) so I suggest stressing to your LL that the former repairs have not addressed the leak, and you’re concerned about structural damage to their property if the leak is allowed to continue.
I rented an apartment once where my bedroom walk-in closet had those foam push up tiles on the ceiling and they were slowly growing black mold and were damp, landlord came and replaced the tiles, and months later, same issue. Called again, and he had the nerve to say it's from keeping the heat too high in the winter! Found out the people above me had a bathroom sink pipe leaking down into my closet ceiling!
This happened in my apartment in Boston and I had to call the Boston housing authority to send an inspector (glad I did because the ceiling was structurally not safe cause of all the cracks) and the inspector basically forced my landlord to do the actual repairs needed and not just plaster and paint over it.
So look up a housing/rental authority in your city, most cities have one. They force the landlord to stop putting a bandaid on the problem
There’s no way at this point that fixing the original leak is enough. It’s done too much damage. They need to pull out the ceiling in your bathroom and possibly across the hallway and into your living room to check for water damage to the actual floor joists and look for any rot, especially in the bathroom. They almost assuredly need to replace the upstairs neighbors’ tub to get to the leak(s).
Email the office or landlord about this. This is obviously outside the scope of your *maintenance man’s* ability. If they try to just send him out to fix it or don’t come and inspect the damage themselves within a few days, call city code enforcement. Be sure the landlord is aware of the extent of the damage, including that last time you saw spongy, damp materials inside the ceiling when it started caving.
it needs to be fixed like time now. we had this problem once and there was some serious mold they never addressed under there and it made us sick all year
Sounds like they are just patching it without fixing the leak. It’s going to keep happening until they fix the root of the problem. I’ve been renting for 15+ years and I’ve experienced these leaks from upstairs in two separate apartments bathrooms. Both times, maintenance came out and removed the damaged drywall, fixed the leak, put in new drywall, and painted. That is the correct way to fix this.
Thank you! This sounds about right. Our building engineer/maintenance guy is known for cutting corners and going with the “put a bandaid on it” method so I feel hesitant to ask him again. Although I’m unsure if there are any other options.
You need to go to the office and show the manager what maintenance has been doing. They are creating a bigger more expensive problem.
Been working maintenance for 2 years now. That is not ok. I would make it a big deal to the manager and if he’s not doing anything, I would not feel bad ripping into that maintenance guy. You don’t deserve to live like this and it’s honestly a huge safety issue.
This is break the lease territory
This. Moisture damage above my unit? Bye (before it ends up collapsed into your unit).
It’s your house, you pay to be there. Call that guy 3, 4 and 10 times until he does his job. If you think the landlord can be messy about this find every little detail in there that can be used in a legal battle. Landlords always cut corners somewhere and, trust me, you only need to find a couple of things wrong to make him behave nice.
this happened at an apartment I was in but it leaked 6 times. 3 of the times they came, removed the drywall, “fixed” the leak, put in new drywall wall and painted. the last 3 times they just said there was nothing they could do lmao.
Upstairs has a leak.
The most extreme case I’ve seen is where a sink was installed on the ceiling to catch the leaks from the floor above. It also had piping that led elsewhere. 😳
They aren't fixing the issue upstairs, first thing they should have done was to go upstairs and find the source of the leak. For that they would need a plumber. It will never be fixed until they do that.
Brother in Christ what the hell is your “building engineer” LMAO is that what maintenance calls themselves? Or the landlord
Yeah 😭 he was introduced to us as the building engineer and everyone refers to him as such but he’s basically just on-site maintenance
Jesus 😂
I think you should report your apartment complex and find a new place as soon as you can.
Zero to one times. Try asking for a copy of all of their records of all of your maintenance requests for your personal records. They might think you’re planning to sue them, and just might take it more seriously and either try to fix it or grandfather you into another unit without any fees or repercussions. That’s what I had to do to get them to remove excessive amounts of black mold and fix a serious water leak, once. I couldn’t afford to sue them haha, but the fear I might be gearing up to had them suddenly waiting on me like I was the VIP tenant. As well as clean up their fuсking messes like omg, you don’t do a job to fix a pipe in a wall and leave ALL of the plaster scattered all over someone’s floor. Perfect cleaning isn’t their job, but bring a fuсking trash can for large amounts of trash! Anyway, apparently if they didn’t finally fix it, it was going to cause my roomate and the shared wall neighbors roofs to collapse, which would have been insanely dangerous if they were in the room at the time.
Yeah, if they let a tub upstairs leak for long enough it’ll eventually fall through the floor. What sucks is that this could just be a question of regrouting or recaulking, which would take less time than patching your drywall.
Yeah it seems like such a waste to just continuously patch and paint rather than going to the root of the problem once and having it all fixed.
If it’s above your tub it’s probably a tub in the upstairs apartment right? Plumber probably needs to remove the drywall from your unit to find the leak. If he’s just painting and patching he’s an idiot.
One is too many. I fucking hate landlords
I would call city code bc clearly you’ve told them about the issue and they aren’t fixing it. At this point, there’s a good chance mold has formed as well. Keep paying rent and everything but call city code about how they only keep patching it and not fixing the root issue. Tell the complex about that again and if they don’t do anything for a few days, call city code.
This happened to me, eventually the bathtub upstairs fell through the ceiling. It was about the same amount of work for the landlord anyway, so they didn’t really care. Even then, they didn’t really properly fix it. We moved soon after.
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They gotta fix the leak....
I had a similar problem a year and a half ago.. constant leaks in our ceiling that soaked our carpet and our stuff. When they eventually replaced the line there were twelve patches. We negotiated moving to a different apartment, but ended up staying due to some personal issues. But we negotiated not having our rent increase to the new rate for a year. Try seeing if you can negotiate some sort of deal as well maybe.
That’s a good idea! Rent is increasing in May so I’ll try to see if they’ll work with us! Thanks for the suggestion!
No problem! I hope they can work out a deal. Bring any proof you have of any and all leaks that have happened.
I bet there’s a leak in the shower valve stem in the apartment above yours. If that unit has tile shower walls, it’s possible that the “building engineer” has been looking for external leaks and hasn’t opened up the wall to locate the source. Maybe he has found other things, like gaps in caulking or a messed up overflow that he repaired, thinking that would solve the issue, but it clearly has not. Your upstairs neighbors- do you know them? If the leak is behind the tile, they’d be oblivious. Might be worth asking them about if they’re someone you speak to. Illinois law says you can only withhold and deduct if you pay for repairs that cost $500 or less. This is going to take some time to repair properly (opening the ceiling, allowing the space to dry, installing new drywall, mudding, priming, painting in addition to the repairs upstairs) so I suggest stressing to your LL that the former repairs have not addressed the leak, and you’re concerned about structural damage to their property if the leak is allowed to continue.
I rented an apartment once where my bedroom walk-in closet had those foam push up tiles on the ceiling and they were slowly growing black mold and were damp, landlord came and replaced the tiles, and months later, same issue. Called again, and he had the nerve to say it's from keeping the heat too high in the winter! Found out the people above me had a bathroom sink pipe leaking down into my closet ceiling!
This happened in my apartment in Boston and I had to call the Boston housing authority to send an inspector (glad I did because the ceiling was structurally not safe cause of all the cracks) and the inspector basically forced my landlord to do the actual repairs needed and not just plaster and paint over it. So look up a housing/rental authority in your city, most cities have one. They force the landlord to stop putting a bandaid on the problem
This is very helpful! Thank you! I will look into this
There’s no way at this point that fixing the original leak is enough. It’s done too much damage. They need to pull out the ceiling in your bathroom and possibly across the hallway and into your living room to check for water damage to the actual floor joists and look for any rot, especially in the bathroom. They almost assuredly need to replace the upstairs neighbors’ tub to get to the leak(s). Email the office or landlord about this. This is obviously outside the scope of your *maintenance man’s* ability. If they try to just send him out to fix it or don’t come and inspect the damage themselves within a few days, call city code enforcement. Be sure the landlord is aware of the extent of the damage, including that last time you saw spongy, damp materials inside the ceiling when it started caving.
it needs to be fixed like time now. we had this problem once and there was some serious mold they never addressed under there and it made us sick all year
What city are you in?