The story is pretty typical: inherited tenant did not report leaking bathtub faucet, it caused water damage downstairs and was reported by the tenant from below. Water damage is not huge, hopefully I would only have to repaint the bathroom. However my question is: should I just repair everything myself or charge the tenant?

On this forum I see that opinions like "stop shifting blame, man up, bite the bullet" are pretty popular....

But my question is more about: how can I use this opportunity and help tenant understand that they should report issues ASAP even if they don't care about the place where they live?

Complications:

- lease language contains clause that "tenant should maintain plumbing fixtures and report issues", but it doesn't say anything about preventable damage. Even though after I took over the building I sent everyone a flyer mentioning that all preventable damage will be charged to their account, it does not their current lease in any way.

- risk of losing the tenant + related expenses + very unclear prospects of winning this case (they would argue that leaking faucet that was not overflowing the bathtub is not something urgent in their mind)

Poor alternatives (IMHO):

- Tell them to repair the bathroom themselves, but there is no way I can enforce it.

- Fix it, talk to them, give them "last Chinese warning" and hope that this will do it.

** BTW when I called tenant to tell them that there is a leak, they said: I know, in the bathroom. It's been going on for some time. But right now everyone is at work so we cannot do anything.

Thank you for your opinions.