I was leasing a half acre and a 16,000 sq ft building for my machine and fabrication shop the guy in the building across the lot had a the 28,000 building leased from the same landlord. The landlord calls me up one day and tells me not asked me to sublease the small 1000 sq ft area behind my shop to a friend of his in the soil stabilization business. After meeting the guy I had a sublease contract drawn up by an attorney in the contract the guy was prohibited from storing any large quantity of liquid chemicals on the property without a proper EPA approved containment vessel 5 copies were made up of the agreement 1 to my landlord to sign permitting the sublease 1 for me 1 for my neighbor since he and I shared a common area and 1 to the lease the 5th was for my attorney to file everyone signed all was honkey dory for a while I made a lot of special equipment for the guy my neighbor and I called glowworm then one Friday a used fiberglass 10,000 gallon fuel tank shows up. I ask the guy what he was planning on doing. He said he was going to have a containment berm built and store a caustic soda mixture in it for his soil stabilizing business he even had a signed letter from the land lord stating that it was ok as long as the mixture was within the parameters in accordance of how glowworm's business required it for use.
Monday morning we show up to find a 5000 gallon spill of 90% caustic soda a ruptured tank with one end blown out no containment berm had been built just the tank sitting there as it had been unloaded the previous Friday morning. Richard and I both call the fire department who intern call the EPA glow worm is nowhere to be found all of his equipment is gone I call the landlord who shows up in his limo. He just says I told you not to lease to the guy so deal with it and by the way you have 90 days to vacate Next call is to my attorney My neighbor has a building filled with the stuff as he was down hill and his over 400 coke box refrigeration units that he was in the business of repairing were ruined He and I get a hazmat clean up company to remove the mess which meant hauling off 500 cubic yards of contaminated soil gravel and asphalt. My attorney advised Richard and I that we would be money ahead to just move our businesses rather than try and fight the landlord or glow worm who no one could locate anyway. after the 300,000 dollar clean up and clean EPA bill paid for mostly by Richard and in part by me we escaped the EPA fine only because of the clause I had in the sublease contract and a copy of the letter from the landlord saying it was OK for glowworm to have the 10,000 gallon tank placed on the property. Richard moved his business to his property at his home I bought a 5 acre commercial property with 2 partners a few miles away. in the end the landlord was the biggest looser as the 2 buildings remained empty for 5 years and he was hit with the EPA fine Richard's insurance covered most of his losses.