There is nothing worse than when you are working hard in the kitchen in your apartment and your garbage disposal breaks, leaks, or stops working completely.
What are the requirements your landlord has to do? Do they have to fix it, or can they just leave it broken?
Landlords are under no obligation to fix or replace garbage disposals because garbage disposals are considered ‘amenities’, and not something necessary for the livability of the apartment.
Why Do Garbage Disposals Break?
Unfortunately, the overwhelming reason that a garbage disposal would break is that the user puts something down them they shouldn’t.
Many times, this is food that shouldn’t be shoved down the disposal, and other times tools and other silverware get caught down in the disposal, the teeth in the disposal break it up and either break the mechanism itself, or the container that is the garbage disposal.
A good plumber many times will be able to tell how the garbage disposal broke, what caused it, and who was responsible.
If you as the tenant weren’t responsible for the break, there is a good chance that you can talk your landlord into replacing the garbage disposal for you.
What Happens When My Garbage Disposal Breaks?
You have a couple of choices if your garbage disposal breaks. The first is to tell your landlord or maintenance guy about it.
If you have the condition in your lease that says that they will replace these amenities, then you can probably get them to throw a replacement disposal in there for you.
However, if you do not have it explicitly laid out in your lease agreement that this is something that the landlord will take care of, more than likely you are going to be out of luck on the issue.
Can I Buy A Garbage Disposal Myself?
What you CAN do if you want a workable disposal is to go to a local retailer like a Home Depot, Lowe’s, Menards, or even a Wal-Mart and pick one up yourself.
Before you go and install the garbage disposal however, you absolutely MUST check with your landlord or management of the complex to ask if you CAN do this.
Many times, they will want someone doing the plumbing work that is licensed and insured just in case something unfortunate happens.
I realize that it isn’t that hard to do, and you may have installed a hundred of these things in your life. It’s not that they don’t think you have the skill or ability to do it, it’s an insurance thing.
If something happens and a pipe breaks, or there is a leak and water damage, the insurance company your complex has isn’t going to cover the damage if they find out that they let a tenant do the work themselves.
The best thing to do is to just call up your maintenance guy, or your landlord to ask them. More than likely, they will just send the maintenance guy to come and install it for you, which is going to save you the cost of having a plumber do it, and they will feel secure in having someone on their payroll do the work.
While having a broken garbage disposal sucks, unfortunately, because the disposal is considered an ‘amenity’ and not something that is necessary to make or keep the apartment habitable, they have no responsibility to replace your broken garbage disposal.
If you want to replace your disposal, first ask your landlord, they just might do it for you anyway if you are a good tenant.
If not, ask them if the maintenance person can install it if you go and purchase the garbage disposal.
