I live in an apartment near kabukicho. My landlord is an elderly family member (uncle) of mine.
16 days ago, water started leaking from the ceiling. It turns out that my upstairs neighbor has been using a leaky air conditioner since then. The water from the air conditioner seems to be going through his floor down through the ceiling to my apartment unit.
I’ve already asked him multiple times to stop but he refuses. He just keeps telling me that he can’t do anything about it “それはできません” is the answer i keep getting. The upstairs guy is a host and apparently his management company owns the apartment. I’ve contacted the 管理組合 and they told me it’s not their problem as it’s between two apartments. According to them, their role is to fix and maintain the outside and shared areas? They did send someone to check the damages and confirmed that it was the problem with upstairs AC. I got a picture of the situation and the guy is legitimately just living with wet floor. This doesn’t even begin to describe the state of his apartment though (Cig butts on the floor, etc)
My uncle is currently in America. We’ve been trying to contact everyone we can. Nobody is responsive, nobody gives a fuck, and nothing is being done.
My uncle contacted our insurance. The problem is that he is old as shit so things are moving ultra slow. He is also very unsure about how all this process works which adds to the delayed time.
I’ve also talked to the guy who is supposedly responsible for managing the upstairs apartment on behalf of the company (he is a real estate agent in this building) and all he does is apologize with no action. He also constantly brings up break and obon yasumi.
I’ve been documenting everything. Is there anything to help my family member speed this up? Is it true that 管理組合 is not responsible at all?
The leak started in one spot and now it’s like 8 different spot and slowly spreading. The ceiling is all moldy now as well.
13 comments
I have a feeling that moving would solve your problem faster.
Maybe try to move to another apartment?
> I’ve contacted the 管理組合 and they told me it’s not their problem as it’s between two apartments.
In my building (a single data point) it would absolutely be their problem; the spaces between ceilings and floors, and particularly the pipes that run through those spaces, are handled by building management and not by either of the individuals living on either side, who shouldn’t be attempting to go into those spaces to make changes.
What a sucky situation. If you can open the ceiling at all, puppy pads are very absorbent and will sop up a surprising amount of the water. Hopefully that will slow the progress of mold or at least make it easier to clean and protect your stuff while everyone drags their feet.
Well, the 管理組合 and/or the building owners are going to have to get involved at some point.
If it were me, I’d start with contacting my uncle’s Disaster and Home Owners insurance companies.
I think they’d be able to give some guidance as what to do for the next steps.
If for some reason they were unable to help, it might be time for straight legal action.
The lawyers will take it from there.
A lawyer guy in our office mentioned something about 個人賠償責任包括特約、which might go into effect if the leaser (or the guy upstairs’ management company) did not have proper insurance.
Seems like getting a lawyer involved somehow, serving both the neighbor and their landlord with papers, detailing the damage and costs to repair could be a way to get them to move their ass and actually do something.
Also, Obon is over, so they can’t hide behind that.
Leave your tv on full blast while you are out. Repeat everyday until the management company and building association give you some attention.
This is probably terrible ideas … but sounds like you have tried to be reasonable so somehow ramping up the crazy on your side may unfortunately spur them into action.
Have you tried using a blow up swimming pool? You can treat the water, get your water wings ready, beer floaties are optional
The owner of the building would be interested in preventing tenants from damaging the building. Does your uncle own the whole building or just the apartment you live in? If it’s not the whole building, find the actual owner, explain that a tenant is actively causing physical property damage (causing them financial losses), and insist that they do something about it immediately. They would likely want to act quickly.
If that doesn’t work, hire a lawyer to send threatening letters to everyone involved.
Just be aware that the host club may be directly or indirectly run by organized crime or some adjacent organization.
Try going through this checklist:
https://mkc.jp/columns/co_045.html
In particular, the section about who has responsibility for fixing the problem seems relevant.
Contact everyone’s insurance companies. Your Uncle’s insurance, the building owner’s, your neighbor’s, neighbor’s company, etc.
Once the insurance companies get started things will progress faster.
Run a nail through his a/c line and let the freon leak out. Stops his a/c, stops the water. lol
Wet sheets designed for incontinence absorb hella water and are relatively cheap on Amazon. Hope your situation gets sorted soon.