When Jaime Morton returned home Sept. 12 from a night out of town, it was to find more than a foot of water saturating her basement.

She did what most people renting their home would do; she contacted her landlord to describe the conditions and await instructions.

But then she waited.

Morton’s landlord lives in Lyons, one of the areas hardest hit by the flooding in Colorado. When she received no response to her call or text messages, Morton began to fear the worst about her landlord’s situation.

Meanwhile, the basement of Morton’s home on Hapgood Street in Boulder continued to deteriorate. Stones were falling from the walls of the earthen basement, and the smell of mold was beginning to permeate even the upper levels of the house.

Morton and her roommates were faced with a choice: act to protect their house and health without the expressed consent of their landlord; or continue to wait.

“We hadn’t heard back from our landlord about what we thought we needed to do, so we just ripped out the carpets, pads and rotten plywood underneath,” Morton said. “We just couldn’t leave it inside any longer; we knew we needed to get the rotting stuff out.

“Once we got to the plywood on top of the dirt, though, we realized that some of it seemed to be bolstering the dirt shelf that the water heater and furnace are based on, so we didn’t want to mess with that and potentially be liable for any more erosion or damage, but it was a hard call because we didn’t want to leave anything that was holding water down there.”

Attorney Jacob Eppler said confusion around repairs to rental properties is common because of the variability of landlord-tenant contracts. Eppler, who represents landlords and tenants throughout the Front Range, said the law basically boils down to one thing: habitability.

“The presumption is that the tenant has responsibility to repair (the property) unless otherwise stated in the lease,” Eppler said. However, he said, that responsibility shifts if the damage is something that renders the property unsafe or otherwise unlivable, a law known as the implied warranty of habitability.

The implied warranty of habitability essentially requires landlords to keep their properties “habitable” even if the lease does not require them to make repairs. However, Eppler said, the guidelines as to what constitutes habitability are “weird and complicated.” In a dispute between a landlord and tenant, a judge will typically decide if conditions in the dwelling rendered it uninhabitable.

“It really comes down to a common sense type of thing,” he said.

However, if tenant-initiated repairs cause subsequent damage, the tenant will be liable for the cost to fix those, as determined by a judge.

Several options are available to tenants whose homes have been damaged by natural disasters, Eppler said, including an “act of God” clause that allows tenants to terminate their lease if the property is destroyed.

Eppler discussed situations in which a tenant might be offered lower rent if part of the property was rendered uninhabitable.

“A judge might take the square footage divided by the rent and then subtract X amount of money because you can’t use that space,” he said.

If damage occurs to your property, he said, the first thing to do is contact your landlord to inform him or her of the damage.

“Do it in writing,” Eppler said. That way, you have a record that can serve as evidence in court should a dispute arise. From there, try to follow your landlord’s instructions for repairs to limit your liability, always keeping your health and safety as top priority.

In the case of Morton, she followed Eppler’s final piece of advice to renters concerning the protection of property: “If you see a condition you can rectify, rectify it.”

Morton’s choice to remove the waterlogged flooring but not the plywood supporting the water heater and furnace was the right call, according to Eppler. It prevented further damage to the property while still protecting the tenants from liability for the appliances.

Morton eventually was able to connect with her landlord, who was safe and dry in Los Angeles, not swept away by the floodwaters in Lyons as Morton had feared. Someone was dispatched to Morton’s home to begin drying out the basement, and a mason will be stopping by in the next few days to assess damage.