What an heir-head.
Fashion icon and British brewery heiress Daphne Guinness is being sued by her downstairs neighbors at 995 Fifth Avenue for repeatedly sudsing their $12 million apartment with her bath water.
Karim and Tina Samii say since Guinness moved into her $15 million, 4100 square foot apartment in the former Stanhope Hotel in 2008, she’s flooded their apartment four times.
The first flooding incident was the fault of Guinness’s contractors, the suit says, but the other three all happened after the skunk-haired style maven left the bath running and forgot to turn it off.
Now hedge-fund huncho Samii and his wife want a court order barring Guinness from taking baths – as well as over $1 million in damages.
The first bath water soaking took place on Halloween of last year, when the Samiis “returned to their home to find water leaking from ceiling of their master bedroom to the floor,” the suit says.
The Samiis called the super, who headed up to Guinness’s apartment, “and Ms. Guinness’ assistant told him that Ms. Guinness had just taken a bath,” the suit says. The super “determined that the flooding occurred because Ms. Guinness had overflowed her bathtub, causing water to continuously pour onto the floor and eventually into plaintiffs’ apartment.”
The flood caused “substantial damage” and caused the Samiis “great inconvenience” by depriving them of their master bathroom for a period of time, the filing says.
The second incident happened on May 9.
The Samiis once again saw water raining down from upstairs, and when the super went upstairs to Guinness’s 11th floor home, she “was in the kitchen talking on the phone and was surprised by the disturbance. Meanwhile, water was continuing to pour out of her bathtub and onto the floor, causing the significant flooding below,” the suit says.
Guinness told the super “she had turned on the water to her bathtub, left it unattended and had then forgotten all about it,” the suit says. This time the damage was even worse – trashing not only the sheetrock and walls, but the Samiis’ vanity cabinet and molding.
The couple was again shut out of their master bathroom, and “began to experience anxiety and distress” about going out for “fear if they did so, Ms. Guinness would turn on the water to her bathtub, neglect to turn off her faucet and cause additional damages,” the suit says.
Building officials met with Guinness. and told the 42-year-old that the tub discharged more water than it was legally allowed to, and “ultimately restricted the amount of water directed toward Ms. Guinness’ bathtub.”
That still didn’t stop the femme fatale from soaking their place- the suit says the apartment was flooded again this past Oct. 10. This time when the super went up to the apartment, he saw Guinness’ “personal assistant and another female attempting to dry the floor with bath towels.” The tub was draining, but “water level was still so high that it was clear that [Guinness] had again left the bathtub unattended and allowed it to overflow.”
Guinness was in the apartment at the time, but didn’t deign to meet with the super, the suit says.
The Samiis say they’ve had it with her “repeated gross negligence and failure to exercise the slightest degree of care” to stop the problem, want “in excess of $1 million” to pay for their repairs and “mental anguish and emotional distress” and an undetermined amount in punitive damages.
They also want an injunction barring her from taking bathg until “she completes all remedial measures necessary to ensure that the bathtub will not overflow.”
Guinness could not immediately be reached.