Blocked drains cleared
across Bondi

In order. First, try the agent or landlord, including whatever after-hours number your agreement gives, and write down the time you tried and how. That step is not optional: giving notice, or making a reasonable attempt at it, is one of the conditions of being reimbursed later. Second, if you cannot reach anyone and it is genuinely urgent, you can arrange a licensed plumber yourself. A blocked or broken toilet is expressly named as an urgent repair in the Residential Tenancies Act 2010. Third, keep the invoice and send it with written notice. The landlord must reimburse reasonable costs up to $1,000 within 14 days.

We cannot promise that, because reimbursement depends on conditions that are between you and your landlord rather than anything we control. What we can tell you is what the conditions are: the damage must not have resulted from you breaching the agreement, you must have given notice or genuinely attempted to, you must have allowed a reasonable opportunity to fix it, you must have tried any tradesperson named in your tenancy agreement, and the work must be done by a licensed or properly qualified person. For advice on your own situation the Tenants' Union of NSW and NSW Fair Trading are the right people to ask.

It matters more than almost anything else in this process. Reimbursement applies only where the repairs were carried out by a licensed or properly qualified person, so using someone unlicensed because they were cheaper or available can cost you the entire claim. Our licence is NSW 368473C and it is on the invoice, and you can confirm it on the Fair Trading register in about a minute. Ask any plumber for their number before they start.

Then it is likely on you, and we would rather say so plainly than pretend otherwise. Reimbursement does not apply where the disrepair resulted from the tenant breaching the agreement, and wipes or objects down the toilet generally fall there. What it usually is not is a line that has been failing for years in a building older than everyone in it, and a camera will show which of those you are dealing with rather than leaving it to argument.

No. They clear the bowl, which is all the label really promises, then fail to break down the way paper does. In a block of flats one household's habit becomes the whole building's blockage. They are also the version of this problem most likely to be treated as the tenant's own doing, which makes them expensive twice over.

Yes, and usefully so. A blockage in a shared stack is generally the owners corporation's responsibility rather than any single tenant's or owner's, which changes who pays entirely. It also means the flat that floods is very often not the flat that caused it, because water backing up in a shared line surfaces at the lowest opening. We establish which situation it is and write it down.

A standard clear through an existing access point is $150 to $400. A shared stack where access is in a common area is $250 to $550. A camera inspection is $250 to $450 with the footage handed over. We quote a fixed figure before starting, which matters if you are claiming a capped amount back, because an open hourly clock could exceed it without warning.