If you’re a property manager or rental listing agent, a nightmare scenario would be finding major damage to the property on the day you’re showing your available listing to a potential tenant. The same could be said if you’re a potential tenant having looked for weeks for the perfect place to make home for the foreseeable future. That’s exactly what happened in this case where the victims watched in horror as two hours was all it took for water damage to completely destroy this would-be home.
Dwelling: Townhouse
Category: Water
Location: Whole House
Flower hung up the phone with a smile on her face. She had just booked a visit with what seemed like the perfect couple to rent her townhouse in Pembroke Pines. This was one of many units she owned and rented, and she prided herself on the discerning criteria she outlined before she’d even show a unit to someone wanted to rent from her. Only twice in 10 years of managing her own properties had she shown a property to someone that didn’t end up renting. She was a busy woman and taking the time to show a property required a valuable number of hours out of her day. If they don’t qualify or decide they don’t like something about the property she’s showing, it was time wasted for both parties. She knew her time was worth a lot and she assumed everyone else’s was too!
As Flower was forwarding her office line to her cell phone and preparing for the two hour drive from Stuart to Pembroke Pines, a wave of despair suddenly hit her about the upcoming visit. She paused and slowly sat back down as she tried to figure out what she was feeling and why. She pulled up her file on the potential residents and reviewed everything.
They were perfect on paper.
She then replayed the conversations she’d had with them over the past few days and couldn’t identify anything that should be setting off her internal alarm that had served her so well for so long. Outwardly shrugging it off, but still unable to shake the feeling internally, she gathered the rest of her things, locked the office and started her drive.
As was her custom, she spent most of the drive on the phone, following up with other potential leads or checking in on her current renters. She had a reputation for being a proactive property manager and landlord – a reputation that allowed her to rent out to higher-end tenants that expected a higher level of service. Still, that feeling of unease persisted. No matter what she did to distract herself, she couldn’t ignore that nagging feeling of impending doom.
When she was five minutes away from her destination, and an hour before her scheduled showing, she got a call from her handyman for all of her properties in Dade County. he’d been her guy for at least half of her time owning and managing properties.
“Hi Dave! What’s up?”
“Mrs. Flower, I just pulled up to the townhouse on 11th Street that you’re showing today. I got bad news – the toilet upstairs…it broke!”
“What do you mean it broke?”
“Water….everywhere. When I opened the door, I stepped into a big puddle of water. I heard water gushing from upstairs so I ran to the bathroom and saw the water spilling from the hose to the toilet. It’s turned off now, but it’s been flooding for a couple of hours it looks like!”
Suddenly, her feeling of despair made sense. She believed the universe possessed a cosmic power,not dissimilar to shock waves emitting from the blast of a bomb. They occurred during significant events in all of our lives, both the good and the bad. If we pay attention and really tune into the things in our lives that mean the most, we can feel them.
Her first career had crashed, hard – as had the rest of her life. Or so it seemed at the time. Her marriage had disintegrated in front of her eyes, and she didn’t even notice. Not that anyone was more at fault more than the other. It just happened because neither one of them were paying attention. When she noticed, it debilitated her. She spent nearly every waking hour consumed by self-doubt as a wife and mother. Things at work fell apart, quickly. She was a legal secretary at a mid-size law firm. The tasks of preparing case files, writing various correspondence to clients, lawyers and judges amidst a myriad of other jobs that were part of her job, became too much to handle. She didn’t blame them for letting her go.
Four months after involuntarily becoming a stay-at-home mom, she met a woman at Dunkin Donuts when she was getting coffee one morning. Flower nearly ran into her, probably spilling coffee over both of them, had Sara not been paying attention and stepped out of the way.
“I’m so sorry!”
Sara smiled, “Don’t worry about it. I saw how indecisive you were about what kind of coffee to get and figured you were distracted. I’ve been there myself.”
Slightly taken aback, Flower asked, “Why do you think I’m distracted just because I had trouble picking coffee? I like different drinks based on my mood.”
“And what is your mood today?”
“I…I don’t know. I guess that’s why I got a plain black coffee.”
“Exactly. You’re unaware of YOU”, she said, gently pointing her figure in my direction.
They’ve been best friends ever since. It was Sara who helped her down the path of enlightenment about how we’re all connected. Every human, animal and plant in the universe. Every decision a person makes in their life sends out a shock wave. Some are bigger than others, but they happen – impacting the lives of everything around us in some way. Pay attention, and we can feel them.
Flower was dialed in to the things that mattered to her. Herself and her family. She and Miguel wanted to retire and travel as soon as their youngest graduated college. They had 8 more years. Putting two kids through college and retiring at the age of 55 wasn’t cheap. Her career as landlord and property manager not only provided substantial income to contribute towards her future, but afforded her the ability to be present for the important events in her children’s and husband’s lives. Paying attention is what allowed her to feel the shock wave of the water flooding the property she was showing today.
The car behind her honked, snapping her back to the moment. As she started driving again, she asked, “How bad is it?”
“It’s bad ma’am. Everything is wet upstairs, and most everything downstairs. The ceiling is already starting to droop and break.”
“Crap”, she exclaimed. “I’ll be there in two minutes.”
Already the wheels were turning as her brain quickly ran through all the ways this was bad. The most obvious being the physical damage to the property, which sounded substantial despite not having anyone living there currently. At least the place was empty.
Then she thought about the lost revenue from however long it was before she could move someone in now that major repairs were going to have to be done.
“No sense stressing about it.”
As she pulled into the assigned parking for the corner unit townhouse she called her long-time insurance agent.
“Robin, this is Flower. I’ve got a major situation at the property on 11th Street in Pembroke Pines. I’m walking into the unit right now but my handyman told me that a water line broke in the upstairs bathroom. Can you help get the claim filed and get someone out here to help me?”
“No problem, Flower. I’ll have our restoration company call you when their on their way then call Citizens to file the claim.”
Robin, and the rest of the agents in the office, have used us for years. In fact, their marketing manager had just stopped in the week before. She quickly found his number and called him directly.
Conclusion: Twelve minutes after Flower hung up with Robin, our lead water team, Guns and 6-7, were headed towards Pembroke Pines. The source was identified as the connector for the water supply line to the toilet. The team used more equipment than suggested by IICRC standards, but doing so enabled us to save a significant portion of the drywall and ceiling. The extra equipment was used to funnel air into and dehumidify the narrow space between the first and second floors. Our marketing manager has passed along information to both Flower and the adjuster about the possibility of subrogation for this claim.
If you’ve had water damage caused by a water supply line in your home, read this article, “Water Supply Line Class Action Lawsuits for Leaks, Burst Lines“.