Hi,
Brief Description
I'm a tenant at Flushing and we've been suffered by water problems in our bathroom for 3 years. The pipe is broken and water leaks from the ceiling every a couple of month. Indeed, they already renovated my bathroom for 3 times. In this week, water start leaking again and after 24 hours, the huge amount of cement fell on the sink right after I left the place. I could be seriously injured or dead.
http://drop.io/bathroomproblem1
What I'm looking for
- I would like to know if this is a case to sue the management company. Am I totally wrong? or can I go for it?
- If I can sue them, I would like to know how much I can get and what's the success rate of similar cases? I know it's totally depend on each case but if someone can tell me a similar story, it's helpful information for me.
- What is the actual total cost for it?
- If I'm taking legal action, what should I prepare for it?
- Should I group up with other floor families? One of families already left.
Please see below for more detail information.
Background Information
- The plumbing problem happens from the 6th floor to 3rd floor.
- I'm confident that the management is aware of this problem for long time. (Everytime they gives me different excuses anyway)
- Since last year, I start taking pictures. I've been sending pictures for last 2 times and I have copies in my inbox with the email log.
- When I asked them for some compensation, they rejected. I asked 30% of annual payment which is around $6000. I also told them it's ok if they can remove payment for next 4 month. I'm not looking for ridicules amount of money, but something helps me to move to next apartment.
- The reasons why I asked the compensation is:
1. Physical Damage (e.g. medicine cabinet)
2. Mental Damage (I was almost killed and stressful smell)
3. Wasted my vacation time to clean things
4. Unusable Bathroom time, I needed to go outside
- I'm not sure about total number of leaking, but it is more than 10 times in 3 years.
What I did so far
- I asked super to fix the bathroom
- I called management & send email with pictures
- I checked building inspection records (I could not find any plumbing related violation)
- I checked legal cases. This management company already got sued 2 times in this year. I'm not sure why.
-This company manages more than 100 buildings.
- I called the Housing Court and I got an Attorney's contact
- The manager of this building is also vice president of the company. So I guess I'm talking to a person who has enough authority in the organization.
If you can kindly teach me the information, I really appreciate it. Any type of comments are welcome too.