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I live in Illinois, in a suburb of Chicago and moved into a two flat last July where the owner lives on the first floor. Before I moved in, the landlord "rehabbed" the bathroom by removing the original claw foot tub and replacing with a normal one but did not replace the original flooring. He also did not caulk the base between the floor and the tub. When I first moved in, I asked if I could install a hose type shower head and he responded with "well, I don't really care for them but I guess so as long as you don't make a mess." About 3 weeks after I moved in, my daughter, who is 12 (i.e. not a little kid and knows how to shower properly) was in the shower and the landlord calls me yelling, asking me if my daughter is in the shower and I responded "yes" and he starts yelling about how he knew she would play with the hose showerhead and make a mess and flood his bathroom. I very calmly tell him that due to his hesitation when I first asked, I never installed the new showerhead and if there is water coming down it is becuase there is no seal between the tub and the floor becuase he has never finished caulking it. I went into the bathroom and although I did see a little water on the floor (no more than I would consider normal in taking a shower and informed him that there was no excess of water on our bathroom floor and perhaps it was a broken pipe in the wall or something. He then proceeds to yell at me more saying that it is not the plumbing, that it is my daughter and that he will have to come in and caulk the tub. I say fine and ask him when. He said he would talk to his son (who lives in the basement) when he could do it and I only ask him if he would need to come when I am not home becuase I have cats and I wanted to know if I would need to leave them in the bedroom so they would not be in the way. He said he would never come in without my permission and I said, that's not what I asked, I only wanted to know if I needed to be home or if they would let me know if it was when I was at work. He said he would let me know.
In the following NINE MONTHS, he has called about 2 or 3 times to tell me that water is leaking into his bathroom. Mind you, he has never come to caulk the tub as he said he would. About the second week of April, my daughter is again taking a shower. We now place a towel at the corner of the tub where it hits the wall and another on the floor to catch any water that may drip down. He calls, yelling again about how we are flooding the bathroom and if I don't believe him, I can come down and see for myself and I go into the bathroom to see if there is excess water in our bathroom and though again there is some water dripping from the towel in the corner, it is being soaked up by the second towel on the floor. There is very visibly about a 1/4" gap between the floor and the tub at this area. I tell my daughter to get out of the shower and I go down to my landlords unit to assess his damage. He shows me the bathroom but states that he has already cleaned it up. I tell him again that there was no excessive amount of water on the floor of my bathroom and he yells and says I am lieing. I tell him I do not want any problems and that he just needs to caulk the tub so that we can see if that is the problem or if it could be something else. He says that he can't do it becuase I refuse to let him in my apartment and that's when I tell him he is lieing, that I only asked him once if I needed to be home when he did it and that he has never given me notice of needing to come in and do this. I asked him to please just get it done so that we will not have any issues anymore.
Two weeks later and he still has not come and I go to drop off the rent to him and he says that he will be over the next day when I get off to do it. I say "great" and "thank you" with a smile. He comes over the next day with his son and gets it done in 15 minutes. Yay it's over. Or not. I come home from work yesterday to be confronted by him in the front yard. He says he doesn't want to fight but proceeds in saying that my daughter skipped school and came home, took a shower and flooded his bathroom again. I smile at him and say my daughter would not skip school and if she left early, I would be notified. He then starts to yell at me at how kids know how to work the system and that they can easily get out of school and so on and so forth and I told him look, her bookbag is on the porch becuase she just dropped it off AFTERSCHOOL when she went off to hang out with her friends. He then yells "see, you are fighting with me and I'm telling you that she was up there and my bathroom is flooded and you need to take care of this!".
As it turns out, it was her father who had taken the shower but he knows the situation with the bathroom and the landlord and had placed a towel on the floor just like we all do. My issue is that I do not appreciate the landlord yelling at me everytime he is in a bad mood. I don't appreciate that he insinuate that my daughter is skipping school (cuz all kids skip school to go home and take a shower) and ALWAYS blaming my daugther for everything (he has blamed her for leaving the front door unlocked even though I assured her that she leaves WITH me every morning). And most of all, shouldn't this leaking issue be something that he should be trying to figure out rather than putting it in my lap? When he fixed the tub finally, he said that he wanted to replace the flooring too at some point so I wonder if maybe that is causing an issue too? I am tired of doing extra laundry just to make sure that not a drop of water falls on the bathroom floor. It's a bathroom for chrissakes!! Isn't it supposed to get some water on the floor? I have never had an issue like this before and I don't know what else to do except start looking for a new place for when my lease expires but I love the unit itself and I don't want to incur the cost of having to move again (just moved cross country last summer for the second time in 3 years!) I also fear that he will give me a bad reference for any future landlord. I pay my rent on time, never complain about anything (I can plunge my own toilet) and I just want to live in peace and not feel like I am walking on egg shells in a place I pay ALOT of money to live in.
I'm it feels good just to get that all out of your system. What a nut! Get as much in writing about the situation now. Take pictures now for the eventual move out. Prepare to fight over the security deposit. And leave. Moving sucks (trust me, I understand!). But it is not going to get better. And I imagine it's rough on your daughter too to have a crazy landlord yelling all the time.
yeh moving is gonna be the best way but first yanno get a building inspector in and have them look at the upstairs bathroom Tub wall.. .. the LL will have 30 days to fix it ..
Sounds like there's a leak in a pipe or a faucet in the wall. If this is the only issue you have I think you really should insist that your landlord agree to conduct an experiment and no one gets naked. You all plan a time when you turn on your shower with him there, close the shower curtain and all watch both what the water does in your bathroom and what happens in his bathroom. This should only take about 15 minutes for you all to get an understanding that this is, indeed a plumbing issue and not a reckless shower queen.....or it is. Once you all have a common understanding, then solutions can be discussed. Your LL is a hothead and doesn't like teenagers. But maybe this issue can be overcome and you can continue to live in this place you do like.
outside of trying to reason with your LL all you can do is just move. you're causing your own pain at this point by staying in this place
if this was ever taken to court that is all you would be told. they don't care about how much it costs you to move or how inconvenient it is to your life. they will treat it as you obviously didn't take it very seriously because you chose to stay there regardless of your issues and personal feelings towards your LL
Hey, I agree with Squirl. If you can't get your landlord to agree with this experiment do it anyway. Set up you camera or cell phone point it at the shower and wait for the landlord to come knocking. Do not turn anything off - keep recording. When the landlord knocks before opening the door - observe the condition of your bathroom and let the landlord know. Let him know you have it on tape and make your demands. Keep recording- if this doesn't change his mind -get ready to move out at the end of your lease. Be sure to give notice to move according to your lease and vacate accordingly.
The thing that bothers me about this is there is no 'normal amount of water on the floor' when you take a shower.
I did once have a similar problem with a low threshold of a shower unit and a shower curtain that didn't adequately cover it.
If it's tub, as the op says, curtains are long enough that there should be NO water on the floor.A towel that's 'dripping' is a lot of water.
The thing that bothers me about this is there is no 'normal amount of water on the floor' when you take a shower.
I did once have a similar problem with a low threshold of a shower unit and a shower curtain that didn't adequately cover it.
If it's tub, as the op says, curtains are long enough that there should be NO water on the floor.A towel that's 'dripping' is a lot of water.
I have tub/shower combo in my bathroom and I've never, ever, ever had water on my bathroom when I was done. The only time I get water (and you're talking drops off my body) is when I forget to get a towel and have to run 5ft to the linen closet...and the bathmat catches all of that.
The tub may not be level. Most tubs angle back toward the wall to keep water from running over the side. Sometimes tubs are not leveled correctly or may even become un-leveled by foundation changes. My wife and I had this problem with our bathroom. We got some of these and fixed the problem 100%. Amazon.com: Tidee Tubb Splash Guards, Ultra Clear: Health & Personal Care
Of course this may not be what's causing it. Sorry for the headaches with this situation you're having though.
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