Hello everyone, hoping that you are all well and safe.

This is the situation, there was some water coming down from our ceiling in the kitchen, the light bulb and the cover, were filled with brown water... Long history short we head to the 2nd floor (we live on 1st floor, rent 2nd floor), the tenant was just arriving at that time when we were getting ready to use the door code to open, tenant opened and seems to be as surprised as us... Kitchen and Dining area floor flooded with water, she opened the faucet and no water was coming out, she left it open/running, put the cover in the kitchen sink and left to do something, when we arrived there we saw water still coming from the kitchen sink, she removed the plug to drain the water, we emptied like 4 buckets of water, I left a big fan on to help the floor to dry quicker.... I turned off the kitchen breaker, so we can remove the light bulb and the cover globe full of water...

Should I report this to the insurance? We definitely will need to replace the kitchen ceiling, maybe some flooring on 2nd floor. I am asking because I remember reading here at some point that is not worthy of reporting a claim when something is less than 5 or 10k of damage.

I personally wouldn't. Your rates are sure to rise. We have our insurance for truly catastrophic events like fire.

Get quotes anyway as it will need to be fixed. We had the same issue and the water overflowed all the way to basement, bedroom and vestibule. Hired, fixed and repainted in a week while tenants were on vacation.

Sorry to hear of your troubles LZ. I believe you are saying the following;

1. The water lines to your 2nd floor tenant's kitchen sink were frozen & no water came out.

2. They left the taps open & use a stopper to seal the sink

3. While they were away the water lines became unfrozen & water came out

4. Since they had left the plug in the sink the sink filled & overflowed onto the kitchen floor

5. The water came down into your unit

6. When you & the tenant entered the unit you discovered the source of the water that was leaking down into your unit.

7. Now that the water has stopped dripping you're trying to dry everything out

As to whether or not to submit this to your insurance, IMO it really depends upon your deductible. Unless your deductible is $1,000.00 or less I would not make a claim. At all of our rentals & even for our own house we have rather high deductibles ($5-10K). Being in the construction business, I prefer to keep my insurance cost lower by going with a high deductible. I'm only interested in disaster coverage not for relatively small stuff.

IMO you should just fix it out of pocket & since this was caused mostly by your tenant's carelessness, bill your tenant for the cost of making you whole. Of course a case could be made for the LL being responsible for not preventing frozen water lines.

As Steve, bill the tenant.

The tenant should have known better than to put a stopper in the sink and they should have let you know the pipes were frozen. They already knew the pipes were frozen or they wouldn't have left the faucet open.

I wouldn’t for a claim that small. I’ve only ever claimed twice. One the damage came in at 35K for a fire and one was a lawsuit for a trip and fall.

Another vote not to notify insurance company for what I assume it a small repair cost. Bill tenant as they caused the issue. I assume the frozen pipe hasn't burst.

Get lots of fans on the area to dry quickly. With low winter humidity it should dry quickly. Shutoff and humidifiers for a day or two.