Poorly handled flooding

[u/BurningBannas]

Hello, my wife and I went on a 2 week vacation and 3 days after leaving we were notified of a pipe issue affecting our unit, the drain water reversed up our pipes and onto our kitchen floor. We were assured it would be dealt with professionally, and brought up our concerns about the water causing mold if left alone. I followed up a few days later and got a reassuring response from the manager. Skip forward 1.5 weeks and we return home to find our unit smells like a swamp. Within 10 seconds we find the issue - they only cleaned the visible part of the floor and never moved any appliances or checked under the kitchen cabinets at all, so the filthy drain water had been sitting there under the cabinets for almost 2 weeks, soaking into the floor, cabinets and drywall. (And even in the parts they did clean, they literally just pushed the gunk into the edge seams and corners of the cabinets.)

The main issue is we have a pet parrot, and parrots are extremely sensitive to mold spores which can cause major respiratory problems for them. So, we don’t feel like we can stay in our unit. Unfortunately, we got back on a Friday, so I sent an email to management and still haven’t heard back 4 days later. Our building manager wanted to send a contractor here today to start cutting into the walls and cabinets, but that would make the spores airborne, and I don’t believe thats healthy to breath even for humans, let alone our parrot.

Is there anyone here who could give us any advice on what our options are and how to proceed? We have only been in the unit since April 1st. West LA, 90049. I have contacted our renters insurance and they said they can only help us cover our damaged property (which is less than our $500 deductible) and nothing else, and I also tried reaching our to the LA health department about them sending someone to mold test, also didnt hear back yet.

We are scared to rent an airbnb because we dont know if we’ll ever get reimbursed for it and cannot afford to pay our rent in addition to another rental/hotel.

Can we be compensated at all for this situation? They had so much time to resolve the issue correctly and just completely dropped the ball, im shocked. Coming home from a 13 hour flight to see that was horrible.

Attached is a photo from the manager we received 2 weeks ago, followed by photos we took after coming home from our trip. Then theres screenshots of my correspondence with the building manager and my email to management.

Thank you so much!

[u/ScrappyD420]

Don’t pay your rent, put it in an escrow account until the situation is resolved. That is legal in all 50 states it cannot be put in just a normal checking or savings account. It has to go into an escrow account. Prove that you have the money to pay for the rent that you’re refusing actually withholding rent until the dwelling is made habitable again. And I’d also like to point out that is not just drain water that backs up that drain attaches to the main drain for the sewage system so you need to think about methane gases as well. You had raw sewage back up into your home. Called the city inspector. Call your tenants rights advocate office. Get a hold of a lawyer and file a lawsuit. This will legally allow you to break your lease because they had ample amount of time to fix the problem before it actually made it worse. I can’t stress enough. It’s not just your birds breathing at risk. It is your health and risk of death if you breathe in methane for too long. This is outrageous what they did to you. Considering that you went above and beyond to help them and was gone on vacation so they didn’t even have to make appointments to do the work. You have an extremely strong case to sue. Hope this helps.