Air Conditioning - A/C "Hissing"

Yep, you heard right. I received a call earlier from tenants who are renting a house of mine. The story goes like this:

"I was out cutting the grass today and cutting around the air conditioner when it started making a hissing noise and spraying out coolant. I called somebody to ask them what the problem could be, but being that it is the weekend nobody has looked at it. He said it was either the compressor valves blew or the copper tubing ruptured."

So, 1) does this sound plausible? 2) is this pricey to fix? 3) what are the chances of this "just happening" and the guy renting the house just happening to be standing there when it did? Something tells me he hit it with the lawn mower (riding mower).

Being that I'm not in the area, I'll have to deal with all of this over the phone. I want to make sure I'm not "being taken" by either the tenant or the repair guys.

Yep, sounds like the old thrown rock into the condenser coil. The chances of a tube "just breaking" are slim at best. As your servicer his/her opinion of what happened. Damage caused by lawn mowers is pretty obvious.

Either a object picked up and thrown into the condenser coil from the lawnmower rupturing a tube or maybe one of those pesky meteorites.

Thanks guys! I'm finding it very coincidental, too. I haven't heard from the tenant or any repair people today. I'm hoping the repair guy points out that it was caused by the lawnmower and they just leave me out of it. These people are already getting back less than 1/2 of their deposit due to various and sundry stunts. When they called, I was really hoping they were calling to tell me they were moving.