[CONDO] [NJ] Raccoon got in through neighbor’s rotted balcony and died in my walls. Who’s responsible for the damage?
Hi! I have an odd situation that just happened and it’s been worrying me a bit as I’m not getting any clear answers. I’m pretty new to this type of stuff as I’m young and was left this place after my dad passed. Apologies if this is a dumb question.
So for the past year or so, a few times I saw a raccoon running under the neighbors balcony next to mine. Many of the balconies on our building are in rough shape and rotting, including mine. They replaced some last year on the other buildings, but not this one. I thought it was just hiding from me and didn’t think too much of it.
A few days ago I went down into my basement storage room, and noticed a foul smell and stains on the ceiling. I called a plumber and when they cut a hole in the drywall, a dead raccoon fell out. It looks like it was there for a while and I only noticed the smell when it started leaking through. The room is detached from the main living area so I only go down there maybe once a week.
After close inspection, there’s a lot of ruined drywall all by the hot water heater and furnace. It’s all lightly stained with decomp and a decent area needs to be gutted now because the dead raccoon seeped into it and the insulation.
I had a gut feeling there might have been a hole under the neighbors balcony that it somehow got in from, so I crawled underneath it. The entire bottom of the balcony is rotted and fell down, leaving exposed wall and insulation. There’s an obvious hole where the raccoon was probably living, and my basement storage room is right next to it. It looked like it had been like that for a long time.
I’m getting quoted very expensive prices on fixing this. I know I’m responsible for damage within my own unit, but when researching online, I saw stuff about how they could be responsible for damages directly caused by neglect of maintenance. The balconies are their responsibility when they need fixing. When I talked to the property manager they said that it was a unique situation and it has to be brought up to the board. I emailed them all the photos of the raccoon being taken out, the stains and damage to my ceiling, and photos of under the neighbors balcony.
So who really should be responsible for this? Me or them? Thank you for reading and I appreciate any answers or advice! I hope you all have a wonderful day.