Maintenance Man Dishonest Toward LL? (rental, inspections, house, noise)

[tclark13]

Hi, I have a unique situation with renting that I am just looking for some outside perspective on. I live in a rental duplex, have been here for almost 2 years with no maintenance requests or complaints. My landlord is an elderly lady and we have gotten along just fine over those years with the limited interaction I've had with her. I think I've paid rent late twice and she's done inspections and such, overall it's a good relationship that I don't want to jeopardize.

Last week I called in my first maintenance request. The week before I thought I heard my dishwasher making a strange noise, and I kind of freaked out, turned it off and didn't touch it until I could call my landlord to have it looked at. I wanted to be safe rather than sorry so I didn't attempt to fix or look at it at all, just called and reported it. She said she would have her maintenance guy come out the next day at 1pm, I was unable to take off work so I had my twin brother go to my house for the day to be there for him.

My brother called me a little after 1pm, and I asked how it went. He said the maintenance man could find nothing wrong with the dishwasher, that he took the bottom off, looked around, then tried running it, and it ran successfully. He let the washer fill up with water, drain, filled it up again, drained it, then stayed while it ran a complete cycle. As he left my brother said he commented something like "Sorry you had to come for nothing" to which the man replied "Oh well it's good and bad, bad because I could be out fixing other stuff that is broken, but good because Ms. ___ pays me to come out anyway!" then he left.

I was happy that there was nothing wrong, and went back to washing my dishes as normal. That was on a Monday, fast forward to Friday when my landlord calls me upset, saying the repair guy billed her for $125 for a full drain flush that was backed up. She expects me to pay it because it indicated misuse on my part therefore I am responsible. I was floored, this was not at all what my brother told me happened. I called my brother and asked him to again tell me every single thing that happened and he said over and over he never flushed any drain or did anything except take the bottom off and look, and then run the machine.

I was not there, so I don't know firsthand what happened, but why possible motive would my brother have to be dishonest or inaccurate in this situation? I'm not sure what to do, the easy answer is I could just pay the $125 but I feel like I am being taken advantage of. I told my version of things to my landlord, and she said although she was listening to me, she's had a relationship with this repair guy for over 10 years, whereas she's been renting to me for less than 2 years, and she has never had an issue like this. She asked if I would like to call and talk with the guy and I said yes absolutely. I've been calling him and leaving him messages for 5 days now with no response.

Any input? I don't want to be a problem tenant, if I break something I have no problem with fixing it, but I also don't want to be walked all over.

[Melodica]

You're right, unfortunately the easy answer is to pay the $125. I'm not sure what else you can do in this situation. You weren't there and the landlady believes the repair guy. I would just pay up and if I ever had any other issues, I would make sure I was there when they were being repaired AND I would demand some sort of write-up detailing what was done. You can keep calling the guy, but it's still going to be your word against his, so I'm not sure it will make much of a difference.