Water damage books

Dear all

i just had an unfortunate event happened to my book collection. i live
in an apartment, and the tenant living in the unit above mine forgot to
turn off their bath tub water tap and flooded his apartment. The water
sipped into and through the floor and dripped (more like poured)
directly onto my book shelf, and caused most of the books that i put
onto that book shelf soaked wet. as i didn't discover this after an
hour or so (just guessing), several books that were directly below the
leaking point were complete soaked and expanded and the spine on these
books were ripped apart. but most of them were half-soaked, with the
warm water soaked up to about half of the book. It's almost a week now
and I am still trying to dry them, and they are still wet.

now here is the question. how much should i ask the tenant above me to
compensate for these books? for the severely damaged ones, i guess i
can go with the replacement cost. but what about the half-soaked ones?
should i still charge him for the replacement cost or is there a
commonly acceptable way to adjust this damage?

any thoughts are highly appreciated, as the tenant is pressing me for a
list of damages so that he can settle it asap.

thanks a lot

andrew

The books are practically worthless now. No one would want to buy them
whether dealer or collector, not unless they were very rare, if not
unique.

I would suggest claiming for the full replacement cost. I am sure that
any respectable bookdealer would provide you with a written statement
in support of the fact that a water damaged book is worthless.

Additionally I am sure that there are websites which discuss water
damage with a view to repair. I am sure they will say that values
plummet after a good soaking.

You can quickly cull book values from ABE and prepare a spreadsheet
detailing the cost of replacing like-for-like. Then it would down to
the loss adjustor to dispute your claim.

Good luck,

CB