we rent our DW. and while it's pretty nice, the old tenants flooded out the master bath w/the washer(Laundry is beside master bath). when we went to pull up the oriental rug the "handyman" cut up into pieces for flooring, and attempted to lay new subflooring, we realized for some reason, the 2 floor joists running under our stand up shower, are almost 1/2" lower than the rest of the bathroom. our LL loves us doing remodeling, and gives us our cost and labor off rent. they are awesome people :) however, it is not in our or the LL's budget, to have the house jacked up.

we laid subflooring, and lowes AND home depot recommended a flex floor compound. well, it's NOT flexible, and is cracked SO BAD, and uneven, despite me spending hours sanding it!

i had the idea of creating a 2 inch "step" up into the shower, which has solved the problem for the most part, BUT there is a small 12"x20" original piece of subfloor that is holding up my garden tub. we really don't want to take the tub out. it's simply placed, just sitting on a few pieces of 2x4.

does anyone know of a remedy for this? just to jack up that small section of the house, is gonna cost up to or right over $1k. our budget for the bathroom remodel, was only $400, and i've already spent $700.