Anyone have experience fighting with their strata management company?

I'm in a first floor unit and the building is about 13 years old. Since the summer my sink has started to fill up with water, there has been other units near me that backed up and flooded and a plumbing company has been practically living here lately replacing pipes in the parkade, etc.

Plumber comes out, augers the line and tells me there's a block about 8 feet in. Pushes it out and dumps degreaser down. Everything is okay for a few months.

Then the last few months... had to call them in like 4 times for my sink filling up and draining, etc. It's been a nightmare... they said they can't do much, it's a pipe in the parkade full of grease and shit. Eventually they pulled the end caps off the pipe and pulled out a shit tonnes of grease, etc.

Suddenly now my management company is saying I have to pay for the July visit... like 6 months after the fact... saying 8 feet is still inside my unit and it's my fault. The plumbing invoice says "Most likely the fault of tennants" on it.

Well which fuckin tenants? Doesn't say me and tenants could be referring to a general tenants of the building. My sink is like 4 feet away from the vertical pipe that goes down into the parkade which is shared by all 5 floors above mine. It could be anyone. I don't even cook with oil and I don't use my garbeurator. And even if I did, how the fuck is it my problem if the pipe in the parkade is being replaced now becuase it was totally blocked with grease?

The bylaw he quoted says that it's my responsibility to maintain things in my unit.

So far online, I have found several resources saying that ANY drainage of water in the building is considered common property and not the responsibility of owners or tenants.

Anyone else have experience in this vein?

I'm in the same boat, there's a lot of other jobs that are offering $10-20K more for a lateral move. But they're all hybrid and some only in-office.

The extra 40 to 90 minute drive + gas and the extra 45 minutes to get ready in the morning / wind down when you get home is not worth it.

I've gotten so use to leaving to play sports, see friends, do chores, the moment I finished all my work vs waiting till 5PM to hit. Incentivizes me to start earlier and work way faster than ever. With all this extra energy and time, I can manage to do extra contract jobs to close up the $10-20K+ lost.

Typically, an oxford comma isn't needed if there are two objects. Three objects in a list and it becomes grammatically optional; though required under some style guides.

UGLY!? FUZZY FACE IS UGLY!!? how dare you sir, HOW DARE YOU!!!!

you calling his girlfriend an object?!

Subjects removed. HuD’s Homeless. Let’s hope the Z doesn’t breakdown in the next 2 years. lol.

^^ what's the next move?

Sold all my pride and moving in with the parents lol!

We are tearing down their house, and they are allowing us to build a suitable residents for both of us. They are elderly, we are their secretaries/chauffeurs. They are our daycare. We will soon be their daycare.

Isn't his example the exact reason why people should always use an Oxford comma though?

Without the comma, he sounds like he's saying his 17.5-year-old dog is his girlfriend, no? This is independent of writing style.

Curious, how much is the bill?

1. What does your building bylaws state for responsibility? Find this out first, then proceed further.
2. Only mechanical drawings will show if 8ft is truly inside your unit (or you can use a camera with pin locator) if the 8ft section is a common pipe, but its inside "your unit" this is where building bylaws / law will come into play.

Dont have experience fighting strata, but i do have experience unclogging strata pipes tens/hundreds of times, and 90% of the time its the main stack thats the issue. Poor slope, sagging section, people chucking shit down the drain that they should not (richmond) etc. Result is always the nearest unit that gets clogged.... as it would. (Yours)

Not much, $286, but they've been called to my unit like 5 more times in the last month and a bit so I can forsee them trying to say it's all my fault.

And its not so much the $ as standing up for rights.

Property manager has already lied once saying council said to charge me, I asked my friend on council and he said they did no such thing.

I looked up the camera you speak of... $1,000+... do you know where to borrow one from?

Next time your unit is clogged, ask for a plumber with a locator.
Or maybe find some geezer on craigslist services willing to do it for 40$/hr so your not paying a plumbing company 200$ to come out.

Again, i would not bother with the above, until in fact common piping within your walls, are your responsibility as per strata, and even then...

Did you call out to the plumbers directly or the property manager? Defer the bill to strata council and CC the property manager in emails w/ the information that it is a plumbing issue to the parkade plumbing.

imo, only way you'd be forced to pay if you called the plumbing company directly and/or it was an after hours charge

As for the camera, you might be able to rent one at Home Depot or even possibly one of the tools stores (KMS or Summit)

maybe you can ask for definitive proof that the issue was caused by your unit? or get another plumber to come and assess the situation and write a report that explains that it could be from any other of the units?
even if that costs $300 which is the same as your fine at least it might serve to protect you from future fines whenever the problem comes up again.

Finding the definition of your unit will be key. Perhaps it's in words and through drawing. For example, your unit is measured from center of the walls and then a drawing outlines your walls.

Anything outside your unit and you may just be able to tell them to piss off.

Even if it's inside his unit, it seems absurd to me that a blockage in any stretch of shared pipe between units could be considered one unit's responsibility.
That just boggles my mind if a strata could enact such a non-common sense bylaw like that.

Not yet, kind of an evolving situation... I posted what I knew at the time... I only just recently realized the property manager lied to me about why the invoice was sent to me.

Then I saw the invoice and the way the plumber worded it leaves a lot to interpretation... nobody seems to be willing to tell me if he meant tenants as in tenants of the building or tenants of my unit (I'm also not a "tenant" I'm an owner)

As mentioned this is nearly 6 months in arrears, that call out was in July... they've been to my unit and disassembling pipes in the parkade to try to fix things like 4 more times since then, 3 around Christmas alone because my sink kept flooding with dirty water that has leafy greens in it as soon as my upstairs neighbour turned on their garbeurator, so they're obviously fucking around up there and causing some of the issue. One of the times the plumbing company also didn't tighten my pipes properly and water started leaking out onto my kitchen floor from under my sink. I had to get in there and tighten it all up myself. Awesome.

I've asked for all the invoices from the plumber with their notes but they're dodging me now and the strata guy isn't writing back to me.

Just a bunch of assholes.

just curious what does the property manager gain from lying? seems like an easy way to get themselves in trouble

NO idea... I think he was just hoping I'd pay it with no questions.

His exact words were: "The strata council has decided that 8 feet is still within your unit and you are responsible for the bill" but I texted someone I know on the council and he was like.. uh... no?

Even if that was the case though, did they check building schematics? Or just sounds like it probably is 8 feet isn't that far LOL... in my case though, my sink is right next to the nothern most wall of my building... 8 feet by my measurements is already out the horizontal pipe going out of the under-sink area, meets up with the perpendicular pipe that everyone drains into from all 6 floors and then down into the parkade where it turns and goes horizontal again above some poor fucker's Nissan Rogue that go doused with brown spew when they pulled the caps off the pipe a couple weeks back.

Crazy ass people.

"decided that 8' is still within your unit"

that doesn't even make sense, one cannot just arbitrarily "decide" like you said, it must be "determined". let the as-builts determine where the actual delineation is from your unit to the rest of the building.

It's probably just a scare tactic to get the owner to pay.

People lie all the time

Just a note re the initial call out fee.

When we do a service call, the invoice always goes to the party who requests the service call. We would not change the invoicee on work order unless that new invoicee notifies us in writing that they will accept the invoice instead. You can understand the issues that might arise from an initial customer simply saying "Those guys should be paying this bill instead". As the service provider it's not really my reponsibility to figure out whether it's strata or owner who pays the bill.

In your case, I know it's not a large amount, but to protect yourself from any potential creditors or legal issues you might want to pay yourself, and then pursue compensation from your strata. Otherwise, you really need to have them notify the plumbing company they should be the invoicee.

It's one of those things where it's kind of funny if you're not in the middle of it... but if everyone is being obtuse it's hard to prove your point.

The invoice is made out to the strata... I made sure to call the management company every time something happened and they made the call to bring a plumber in on my behalf.

In that case I wouldn't sweat that it hasn't been paid, that's on your strata. If something formal comes down the pipe from your strata that says you need to pay, contest it then.

Also I wouldn't get too hung up on the plumber's useage of the word "tenant". He's most likely must misapplying it as a general term to mean "occupant".