Landlord question--there's a leak in my rental unit

[madskye]

Hi,

I have a condo that I rent out to nice young lady. Over the last few years, I've been having an increasing problem with leaks from the unit above mine.

I lived there for five years, no problems.

I moved out 7 years ago.

5 years ago, we found a terrible leak coming in through my kitchen wall--my one wall and cabinets were wet and ruined and needed to be replaced. Upstairs neighbors dishwasher had losened a hose in the wall and had been leaking, undetected for some time. It was not covered by insurance, because they said it had been ongoing for some time, etc. We fought that, and lost and just ended up spending 2K to have it all replaced.

Over the last two years, there's been an intermittent leak into my bathroom from the unit above. I have a drop ceiling, with plastic light panels--so, it could be worse, but its soaked through the sheetrock above the lightpanels (unseen for the most part) 3 x now. The upstairs tenant has paid to have the old sheetrock taken out and replaced. Aesthetically, it's not a big deal. Functionally, it's a big problem. It's a problem for my tenant, obviously. It takes up my time, which I don't have a lot of. And it makes me crazy. And i don't want to deal with any greater damage down the road, like we had in the kitchen.

The first time, her toilet had been shut off too tightly and resulted in the leak. She was away. This time, I'm not sure what caused it. She does not have any visible leaks in her apartment upstairs to cause the water coming in. Short of getting her to open up a wall in her unit and have a plumber get in ther to see if anything is not tight, what can I do?

[littlehoneybee]

The toilet in my condo was leaking into the unit below and it turned out to be the wax seal which had cracked. There was no visible leakage in my unit, but I had to repair the ceiling in the unit below me. I'd have a plumber check the seal first. That only requires lifting up the toilet.

[yeahwhat]

There are plenty of possible leaks in plumbing that only show up on the floor below. We've experienced wax seal around the toilet going, pvc drain pipe somehow cracking, copper pipes springing a leak, overflow of tub leaking, drain of tub leaking, and water being thown out of the bathtub by kids by the bucketfull and running down the wall of the apartment below. (Not all in the same place). If you can see the plumbing above by moving the drop ceiling panelling and remving any insulation, between you and the upstairs neighbour you should be able to figure out where the leak is coming from by doing one thing at a time and looking carefully for drips, and then get a plumber in to fix the problem.