I am a tenant in a one bedroom apartment, second floor of a house.
In late June, I noticed a small leak coming from the water heater. I called my landlord and informed him, and nothing was done.
In July, I went on vacation for two weeks. While I was on vacation, the water heater began spewing out hot steam for the entire two weeks. When I came home, and turned on my hot water, nothing but steam came out. I immediately called my landlord and informed him of the problem. He in turn, immediately sent someone to fix the leak.
Later, I got my gas bill for the next month (I have gas heat). It was 300 dollars more than my usual bill. I had used a huge amount of therms for the week of July. I called my gas company and they informed me that yes, if a water heater was leaking hot water for two weeks, that would increase my gas bill.
I called my landlord and asked him to pay the $300 dollars extra. He seemed surprised that I would ask such a thing. After he "bartered" with me over the phone for 10 minutes, he finally agreed to pay only a portion of the extra gas bill. He told me I needed to pay the rest. I also had to front the whole $300 to the gas company, and take the portion that he agreed to pay out of next months rent.
I feel that I should not be held responsible for paying ANY of the $300 gas bill. What do you think?
Editor's response
Under MA law, your landlord may be liable for damages caused by his negligence. I think you could convince a small claims court or the housing court that your LL was negligent and that his negligence caused your damages. The question is, given the amount of money involved, whether it would be worth the time and aggravation (and the possibility that you would sour your relationship with your LL).