Need advice: Where does the liability for damage fall?

[PLD 14]

Today, I comitted a rather large faux-pas. While washing a building of 6 townhomes, I overlooked an open window until the rinse phase. Being the through guy that I am, it's a good bet that their carpet, drapes, etc are now nicely speckled with bleach spots. No one was home, and I should have left a card but I thought I'd ask around first. I'll be back every day this week, so I can always catch them again. That said, my questions:

- Should I persist in attempts to contact the owner, or am I just asking to pay for all manner of things that may not have actually been damaged to start with.

- Where does the buck stop? If the management company (who hired me) sent a letter of warning, does it fall on the homeowner? If not, does it fall on the managment company? Should I offer to split the damages with the mgmt company?

- Granted, this one I just plain didn't see. But for those that I do locate how do I protect myself? Skipping units doesn't seem feasible, as each bldg had at least one. That, and it's a real pain to come back for one unit in the middle of 9 others. I kept a reasonable distance from them, but there is still risk.

Anyway, no complaint yet and I can always fall back to my insurance company but I want to be prepared to handle it as fairly and easily as possible. That, and a $500 ded. is a rather large pill to swallow.

[Mathew Johnson 123]

I had a similar issue 2 years ago... I called my insurance Company and they directed me in the right direction.

[Washaway 64]

Today, I comitted a rather large faux-pas. While washing a building of 6 townhomes, I overlooked an open window until the rinse phase. Being the through guy that I am, it's a good bet that their carpet, drapes, etc are now nicely speckled with bleach spots. No one was home, and I should have left a card but I thought I'd ask around first. I'll be back every day this week, so I can always catch them again. That said, my questions:

- Should I persist in attempts to contact the owner, or am I just asking to pay for all manner of things that may not have actually been damaged to start with.

- Where does the buck stop? If the management company (who hired me) sent a letter of warning, does it fall on the homeowner? If not, does it fall on the managment company? Should I offer to split the damages with the mgmt company?

- Granted, this one I just plain didn't see. But for those that I do locate how do I protect myself? Skipping units doesn't seem feasible, as each bldg had at least one. That, and it's a real pain to come back for one unit in the middle of 9 others. I kept a reasonable distance from them, but there is still risk.

Anyway, no complaint yet and I can always fall back to my insurance company but I want to be prepared to handle it as fairly and easily as possible. That, and a $500 ded. is a rather large pill to swallow.

For the future......within your proposal for the job you should always include a 'terms and conditions' page. In ours it states the following:

"..........Wash Away Pressure Cleaning, Inc. will not handle any private property and holds no liability for water or dirt damage to private belongings left in direct path of spray. All belongings must be removed by owners if existing condition of items wish to be preserved"

and

".........In the event that tenants must be notified of upcoming project, such will not be the responsibility of Wash Away Pressure Cleaning, Inc. Upon project commencement Wash Away Pressure Cleaning, Inc. will assume that all necessary notifications have already been handled by management/ownership."

Without the 'terms and conditions' page and 'prices' pages being returned to us, signed, absolutely no project will be scheduled or started. This will help with some responsibility issue. Having said that, the tenants in a lot of cases just don't give a ....!

You need to keep an eye out for such things and yes, you may have to omit and come back again. It's just a part of the job and you should factor such situations into your price to begin with. Sometimes you'll come out ahead and sometimes you'll loose more than you factored in. In the end it evens out.

If the window was open and no one was home then why didn't you look inside? You would have had an idea of the damage, if any, and you could weigh your options.

I'm a strong believer of not making use of my insurance. For example, if you're deductable is $500 and you can purchase new drapes for $100 (they must be some very expansive drapes) and/or recarpet the room for apprx. $200-250 then why would you want to have a claim on your insurance record?

Is this the first time you are working for this management company?

Either way, it may be adventageous for you to handle it and handle it promptly. There are a lot of contractors out there that do not take responsibility and here's your chance to show them that you are different. It could lead to many more projects.

No matter what, I think that you should certainly try your best to get in touch with the homeowner. Simply tell them that you had observed the window being open and you wish to see if any water had snuck in.

If there's any damage it's best if the management company hears it from you first, rather then from the homeowner.

[Washaway 64]

I had a similar issue 2 years ago... I called my insurance Company and they directed me in the right direction.

Which was what?

[John Orr 206]

A few years ago, I was washing a house while the owner was away. It had high, 3rd story dormers. In order to check the windows, I had to cross the street - bu I did - and they were all closed. Apparently, while I was washing, the son came home and opened the window in his room on the 3rd floor. I never noticed. (I noticed the son return, but didn't notice he had opened the window.) Later that day, I get a phone call from the mother wanting to know what I am going to do about her carpeting?! Argh!

Fortunately, I had heard about carpet dying. I called a local company (Rainbow) and they went out and re-dyed the carpet in the area under the window and it only cost about $100.

Its not whether we make mistakes that counts, its how we deal with them.

[PressurePros 249]

Mr. Vajda, one can have all the terms and conditions clauses they want in a contract. You'll be lucky if fifty percent of the time they are actually going to keep you out of trouble. In this scenario, a signed contract with initialing of a damage waiver by every single tenant could have possibly eased the liability, but not for certain because this was preventable negligence on the part of the contractor. The management company holds no liability in this, Philip. Give the management company a heads up. It may already be too late as I'm sure as soon as the customer got home, they saw the damage. I agree with John Orr, it's going to be how you step up and deal with this that is going to make the difference. Best of luck, I'm sure everything will work out fine for you and the customer. Don't sweat it too much, it could easily happen to any of us. Keep us posted as to how it turns out.

[Washaway 64]

PressurePros you're absolutely right. I don't think I said anything different except that I wrote too much.

Either way it's worth a try and in the end it always comes down to how you handle the situation.

[Washaway 64]

pldoolittle, we want to know the outcome of your dilemma!