Tenant accommodation during invasive repairs

[Sam Leon]

So I have a rather tricky situation that I need to resolve at a rental condo.  I own one of the units out of a total of eight in the building.

There is a copper drain pipe leak inside the common wall between my unit and next door.

Very old building from the 1960s, 1-1/2" copper trap arm from the kitchen - most likely previous owners or tenants used drain cleaning chemicals that ate into the copper, and the pipe has developed pin hole leaks at the bottom.  When I initially discovered the leak last year I used some epoxy to patch the leak, but now the holes are appearing in other locations.  In addition, my next door neighbor's drain is also leaking.  Both units have mirror image floor plans and the drains are the same, they both turned into the wall and run to the stack like a double barrel shot gun.  Bottom line, the drains need to be replaced.

Technically, according to the HOA papers, the HOA has to repair anything inside the common wall, but this is a laid back HOA and things move slow with many absentee owners. I have received permissions from the officers that I have the freedom to hire whoever to get the needed repairs done ASAP , and we will worry about who pays what later.

The entire trap arm is about 6' long about 20" above finished floor.  However, one end of it is inside the sink cabinet, the other end of it where it connects to the stack is behind the bathroom, where there is a tub the whole length, and tiled wall (with no spare tiles).  It is the exact same situation next door.  There is no getting around ripping out cabinets, taking down tiled walls and waterproofing etc...both kitchen and bathroom will be unusable for days.

Which brings me to my question.  If we decide to open up my side for the repairs, I have to work something out with the tenant.  Let's say the unit is going to be out of service for one week, I know I have to return pro-rated rent for days not occupied.  However, what else is customary and reasonable as a compensation to the tenant for the obviously extremely inconvenience?  She has been a good tenant (4 years) and has two cats (so hotels may be difficult).  She has renter's insurance but I don't know what is covered.

Any suggestions as to what others do when units have to be vacated for repairs.

In the past I had one case where I had to vacate the entire building with 4 units for termite tenting.  But that time it was carefully planned, all the tenants worked out the dates, and they only have to be out 48 hours.  That time I refunded three days rent plus a $100 supermarket gift card for each of them and that worked out fine.  This time it is a longer period of time, with an urgency, and the pets make it a bigger inconvenience.

[Jim K.]

@Sam Leon

You take the cats at your place, put her in a hotel, get the job done. Don't want the cats? Do you have any friends who can take the cats? There are  pet sitters who can take the cats, too. Call and ask around. But I suggest you take the cats. Great learning experience for the kids.   It'll help them figure out that what they really want out of life is high-income employment with plenty of money to put into mutual funds starting in their twenties instead of alternative investment strategies like real estate. They'll also see why Daddy goes through so much of his special Daddy-juice every week.

Now what I'm most worried about reading your post is how much cheddar you're going to spend on this repair,m and what the end result will be. It's a six-foot run of 1 1/2 in drainpipe.  I would do all the work myself on something like this, from the demo to the replacement to the drywall patching to the tiling to the colormatched painting. Not so much because of the money, but really because on something like this, labor-intensive but not really requiring a lot of skill and care except for one glaring exception, someone's practically guaranteed to do something shady. 

What's the quote and what's the scope of work here? What you should worry about is the drainpipe connection to the main stack. That's likely where you're going to find some corrosion, and your plumber will suddenly tell you they have to saw out a significant section of the stack and replace that with Fernco couplings above and below the joint, which will require more demo than originally planned.

Sadly, it's also likely where someone might to see a problem happening, realize that explaining the issue to you will take time and invite suspicion that he's cheating you, so in will go a single, much smaller Fernco coupling running to the 1 1/2 branch and a couple years from now you'll have to open the tiled wall up again. The inspection of the joint made from the 1 1/2 in. drainpipe to the stack is the most critical part of this repair.