We are tenants in a warehouse shared by the owner, our shop is automotive repair and transmissions. We were told the roof was going to be done in the near future but had been given a date of the 25th of the month. We show up for work on the 18th and they have their dumb parked against our garage, whole day becomes a wash, we can’t work. We come back on Monday and the place is destroyed inside. We knew there’d be dust but transmissions are knocked over valve bodies covered in debris, boxes toppled over… it’s a disaster. Who is responsible for this? Us as the business owner/tenant? The landlord who was not on the same page as the roofers? Or the roofers who were not careful with our business?
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All of the above. What we have here is a failure to communicate. As the contractor, I always coordinated with the owner and tenant. I’d guess the roofer is liable.
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We have no issue with cleaning up the dust, that is expected, but there were transmissions knocked over, valve bodies destroyed due to excessive debris, the list goes on, how is a 150lb transmission knocked off the shelving? If we didn’t cover up the office ourselves, I could only imagine what I’d be walking into today.
What do we do in this case? Charge them for hourly fees of cleanup (our normal rate or reduced?) and itemize the destroyed inventory? If there was communication we would have had everything covered ourselves to protect it like we were able to do with the office. But when we arrived they had already tarped off the shop and made it impossible for us to do so… I don’t even get why they would tarp it how they did, it really didn’t protect anything… they weren’t fixing a home, they were fixing a 60+ year old building… complete roof… caused us to loose an entire day on Saturday where we had scheduled lift jobs, smh, and now to come in today and see another day is lost cleaning up after them…its not the cleaning that’s gotten me frustrated, its the lack of respect for our inventory… as I said before how does a 150lb transmission fall off the shelf???
Tear off is a controlled earthquake. Don’t be unreasonable. Talk to the roofing company and landlord first, if no satisfaction contact your insurance. Need to document and photograph everything.
Thanks @Darkthirty … we’re just trying to stay calm, on a overly hot Monday morning 
Could this be the reason why Garfield the cat (comic) grumbled “I hate Mondays”
?? Someone re-roofed his CatBox over the weekend? 
I’m not a cat person, but I don’t think you should have to clean up roofer crap either!
lol it was my bad attempt to have humour on a fiberglass filled air kinda day… 
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Hopefully the roof doesn’t leak in your office next rain!
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Even worse would be over the toolboxes again!!! We can replace a $300 computer with everything backed up twice… those tools… I don’t want to be here when that happens again!
While I have you, any rec. for the air… we seem to be breathing in a lot of fiberglass… is there some fan or something we can rent? Thanks for all your guidance…
Any fire department connections? See if they want to do a PPV or positive pressure ventilation training scenario in your shop. Or get coveralls and masks and use a couple of back pack blowers, wet down the floor and sweep it up. That stuff seems to never go away…
No FD connections nearby that I’m aware of… what is PPV all about? With the mess: So far I’ve come in before the boss and used that old school r2d2 looking vac, and for the office my makita (love that thing)… seems dirts still rising and settling so it’s a daily task… best of it was the day after they finished… we one of the T Storms… and guess what, it rained inside… just one spot verse half the roof this time… guy came out and fixed it next day, apparently it was a drain that they hadn’t put the covering on… Roof looks great and it’s so quiet when it rains now… I’m so used to the puddles and getting splashed, it’s strange… it took about a week before the air simmered down and I could wipe my cheek without fiberglass scratches… Haven’t touched the upstairs yet because there are a lot of small parts I don’t want to vacuum up, but I just figured out how to open the big vac. and realized if i do suck something up I can retrieve it, so now it’s a matter of dragging that big ol thing up there and doing it when the boss who’s allergic to everything isn’t here… thanks for looking in on us.
Fire departments usually have a gas engine powered positive pressure fan for ventilating smoke / fumes out of a building, AKA - PPV. A couple of those and a leaf blower would get most of the fiberglass out of there. I wouldn’t be thrilled breathing fiberglass. Would your insurance pay to clean the shop?
This needs to be discussed with all the parties involved.
I think that horse done left the barn by now
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That nag is glue by now
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This needs to be discussed with all the parties involved.