On being a landlord ...

For various reasons I sold my old home in my old hometown of Tromsø, we took up some more loan and bought a "renovation object" in our own neighbourhood - we're currently renovating the attics and renting out the two main floors to different people. Now if there are problems I can run down from home in 15 minutes - if I'm at home. Here is the post on our previous problem.

The sewage has been a problem for the people in the ground floor for several weeks already. At first we thought it was just a common local problem with the outlet being a bit clogged, typically by hairs from taking a shower - a quite ordinary problem and considered to be within the kind of problems that tenants should be able to take care of without involving the landlord. I haven't been too much on the ball on that issue until yesterday- except for giving hints and suggestions and lending them different tools for unclogging the outlet.

Some few days ago there was a run-up for the disaster - the full sewage pipe completely clogged. My wife deflected the problem over onto our renovation master, he was easily available and knew just what do do and whom to call to get it done - a bit "sucker" tank car came and emptied the tube. The main culprit was said to be old pipes and big pieces of rust - the pipes are some 65 years old, and expected lifetime for such pipes are 40 years. What I learned only later was that they also found quite some wet wipes in that "plug" blocking the sewage.

We expected that the tubes would last for at least some few months if not years after they were sucked clean and the tenant instructed not to throw wet wipes into it, so we planned to get the tubes exchanged after the work with the top floor was finished - but no, yesterday it was a problem again. The renovation master called me in the morning and asked for permission to exchange the tubes the next day already. Then I got another call in the evening, it was all of a sudden full emergency. "Massacre!" the Polish lady exclaimed. I first just wanted to hold my hands over my ears, close my eyes and say "this is going to be OK, you can certainly handle the situation until the tubes are exchanged?", but after a short while it became obvious what I had to do. We do have a car, I don't use it often, but this time it was very handy. I went right to the shop where they sell everything and even boat equipment, bought three porta-pottis (hopefully one will be enough, so I can return the other two unopened), the blue liquid to use with it, two buckets and lots of micro fiber textiles for cleaning. Then I went to have a look at the carnage and try to help cleaning up. I also told them that I'd leave the door open at my home in case they wanted to see my toilet, and I gave the bottom tenants our prepaid cards for the swimming pools owned by the municipality so they could take a shower there.

The carnage was horrid. There were a major overflow in the bathroom in the ground floor, sewage all over the floor - a little bit more and it would have been flowing over the doorstep. The tenant there said that they were waiting for it to "run down a bit" before they would start cleaning. I explained them the sewage level was slowly dropping not because it was running down the outlet, but because it was dripping through the floor and into the basement! I threw the biggest micro fiber cloth into the pool and drained it into the bucket - and then two thoughts appeared in my head. For one thing, there were probably a handful of buckets with sewage on that floor, it would take ages to try to mop it up with a textile. My other thought was that I had dirty hands, but couldn't wash them with water. Back to the shop again!

This time I bought anti-bac and wet wipes for having in both floors, I bought yet another dehumidifier to try to dry up the ceiling in the basement, and I bought a manual bilge pump with tubes - such a thing with a big handle that is supposed to be screwed in place in the boat and used to evacuate water in case of emergencies. So it was back to the house again, I got help from the tenant in the bottom floor - while I was pumping sewage from the floor outlet and up out the window, she would use the shower to flush feces, pieces of toilet paper and whatnot towards the outlet.

Not much more to tell. I'm considering to ask the insurance company if they cover anything. I'm quite sure they won't cover the cost of pumping the outlet, nor replacing the tubes - but I'm wondering, maybe they can cover my shopping expenses? At least the bilge pump and dehumidifier was needed to reduce the damages ... well, the same can be told about the porta-potti, sort of. And the floor that by now has been thoroughly damaged by sewage, that may be an accident covered by the insurance.

I will spare you for the sight (and smell) of the bathroom with some few cm of sewage on the floor. Here are some photos from the basement below, where it's still dripping from upstairs:

2018-10-30 21:33:52 localtime - full quality

2018-10-30 21:34:11 localtime - full quality

full quality

2018-10-30 21:50:08 localtime - full quality

2018-10-30 21:50:15 localtime - full quality

By now there are three dehumidifiers in the basement, hopefully that will reduce the damages in the ceiling there.

In the end, it feels good to do useful work; the tenants seemed grateful that I care about their situation, I have done what I could to reduce the damages, I've utilized my maritime experience to solve landlubber problems, and my step counter shows that I even managed to do 11808 steps despite all the driving today.

Selected photos available in original quality on IPFS QmYQvUDKvKSUXMngNmf1n9nMPodkuv38jWRVpf9X254jdU. The CC BY-SA 4.0 license applies on both my photos and the article

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