If you rent
This one is not yours to hire for.
Work on the building is authorised by whoever owns it, and paid for out of the owner’s policy. A contractor cannot take the job from a tenant, so there is no number on this page — it would only waste your afternoon.
What actually moves it along
- 01Stop the water if you can reach a valve, and get power off in wet rooms at the breaker.
- 02Photograph everything before you move it, with the date visible. This is the part tenants skip and later need.
- 03Tell the landlord or the management company in writing — email or text, not a phone call. What matters later is that you told them and when.
- 04Keep your own copy of what you sent and what came back.
What the law generally says
Most states hold a landlord to an implied warranty of habitability: the building has to be fit to live in, and water coming through it is not. What follows from that varies a great deal — some states allow repair-and-deduct up to a limit, some require notice periods, some allow rent to be withheld into escrow, and a few allow none of it. The rules are genuinely different state to state, and a confident answer here would be a wrong one.
Your state’s attorney general or a local tenants’ rights service will have the version that applies to you. That is the right place to ask, and it costs nothing.
Your own belongings are a separate matter
The landlord’s policy answers for the building. It does not answer for your furniture, clothes or electronics — that is renters insurance, and it is a separate policy you either have or do not.
Renters policies generally treat water the same way homeowners policies do: a sudden, accidental escape of water is covered, a slow leak that went on for months is not, and rising water from outside is not covered at all without separate flood cover.
If you own the property and came here by mistake — including if you own a place you rent out — start here instead →