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Has the author tried cleaning his bathroom?
No they leave it to the landlord when they move out and wonder why they didn't get their deposit back.
> Things start off fine, but then mold starts growing in the bathroom, and a recurring leak springs up in the living room, and then roaches start appearing in the kitchen. When I started reading the article, I thought the whole point was gonna be that the author doesn't take care of the apartment. The recurring leak might not be the author's fault, but the mold in the bathroom and roaches in the kitchen definitely ar…
You need to tell the landlord. I think a lot of people are worried about informing the landlord (especially after two years) as market rates will have risen, and getting stuff fixed might prompt a rise on their own apartment.
> Things start off fine, but then mold starts growing in the bathroom, and a recurring leak springs up in the living room, and then roaches start appearing in the kitchen. When I started reading the article, I thought the whole point was gonna be that the author doesn't take care of the apartment. The recurring leak might not be the author's fault, but the mold in the bathroom and roaches in the kitchen definitely ar…
> roaches in the kitchen definitely are I used to live in a nice apartment in downtown Baltimore. It was a first-story rowhouse in Charles Village (a nice area, back in the 1980s). It had roaches. Every building, for miles around, had them. I used to put out lines of borax, and the little bastards took out straws, and snorted them. I guess maybe new buildings, get a grace period, but roaches are impressive little bea…
I paid rent for most of my life, and suffered the leaks and the mold and broken heat pipes and once a collapsed ceiling. I've lived in at least 15 apartments in my life. Now that I own a house, I can confidently say that paying rent was by far the easier way of obtaining shelter.
I didn't really have a clue until I bought a 100 year old house that not a day would go by for 7 years without needing to fix something, or delay fixing something, or juggling numerous somethings that could implode my savings account unless I strategically patched and staggered them. There are elements out there. The first year in my home, a windstorm ripped half the siding off the front of the house and brought a tree down on the powerline. I had thought I could delay getting a new roof for a few years, but after two years another storm tore a hole in it and the price had nearly doubled. There was the year of ants... ants everywhere, hordes of them, unstoppable. Then the furnace caught fire after a minor repair. The chimney was on the verge of collapse. The sewer line was clogged and leaking. An infestation of an invasive form of earthworm killed the tree in front, and the city fined me for taking it down. In 2020, the street turned into a giant homeless encampment with people having rock fights and shooting bottle rockets over my roof. One month I suddenly got a $2000 water bill. Three days ago the fridge started leaking. Two days ago, the handle broke off the toilet while I was flushing it. I fixed em both.
When I look at what most people in the world do with most of their lives, it's this: Cook food, make shelter, and sleep. One way or another you're paying for it.
> Things start off fine, but then mold starts growing in the bathroom, and a recurring leak springs up in the living room, and then roaches start appearing in the kitchen. When I started reading the article, I thought the whole point was gonna be that the author doesn't take care of the apartment. The recurring leak might not be the author's fault, but the mold in the bathroom and roaches in the kitchen definitely ar…
I would not agree.
Having lived in low budget apartments for quite a while as a student, a lot of these things are "a norm" and not really the renters fault, but the owners.
Examples:
I moved into an apartment that was "subterranean" level, meaning not fully basement but also not ground floor. When we were looking at it, it seemed fine, everything great, but bathroom had the tiniest vent window ever. I asked about the mold, and the owner was like "oh no, no need to worry about that, the ventilation is quite good actually even tho the window is tiny, we made sure of that" - and at the moment, it seemed so, the air was dry and there was no "humid" feeling about the room.
Well, well - the bathroom was humid as hell and would stay that way after the first shower, even with all the vents open and ventilation turned on. Even worse, the humidity in the rooms was so high that the paint on the wall stayed fresh for quite a long time, painting a few of my shirts that touched the wall. When summer came, the rooms became a hotspot for mosquitoes, and the owner would be like "ah just close the windows" - but that kept the humidity and heat in, making life unbearable and causing mold to erupt (also, because a lot of it was just painted over!! just painted over mold, like what the fuck?)
Another one had homeless people which started living around the building, leaving food and booze all over the place. To make it worse, large trash bins were outside our building, which lead to roaches coming in from the bins and from the balconies, under which the aforementioned people "lived". We couldn't do nothing about it, except ensure that there is minimal reason for them to come to us, lay traps around and ensure we have anti-bug powders around the perimeter. I talked to some of the neighbors that lived there for years and they said it happens nearly every summer.
The bed in the apartment started falling apart at some point, and going to fix it I noticed the bed _was fixed_ already, even tho it was said to be new - and it was fixed badly. The same owner charged me 2k for a "designer couch" that "we ruined", even tho before us moving in the couch was welded and nailed together, as it was obviously broken before, and the owner did not want to admit it even when shown the photo evidence.
Once I moved out, I saw what happened to the apartment on the next listing - the owner just painted over the kitchen cabinets, painted the bed, put a new mattress on it and said "all furniture is new".
So a lot of things might sound like they're the authors fault, but having met one too many "bad actors" in the renting game, I'm quite sure that some of these things might be the owners responsibility.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fwiw, most mould is caused by buildings. Poor ventilation, leaks, no waterproofing, substandard building materials. Yes, you can avoid mould in older buildings by carefully airing out rooms and keeping things dry and away from walls. But not if the previous three tenants had a mould issue and the landlord just painted over it.
It's definitely true that not all apartments are equally prone to mold, but individual behavior also has a huge effect on mold. If you know that you're living in a place that's susceptible to mold, you have to take that into account when deciding how to furnish your place and how to manage humidity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> roaches in the kitchen definitely are I used to live in a nice apartment in downtown Baltimore. It was a first-story rowhouse in Charles Village (a nice area, back in the 1980s). It had roaches. Every building, for miles around, had them. I used to put out lines of borax, and the little bastards took out straws, and snorted them. I guess maybe new buildings, get a grace period, but roaches are impressive little bea…
Roaches in a clean, maintained apartment means there is a problem elsewhere in the building. We had a small infestation. And no matter how many times we called the exterminator they kept coming back. Found out one of our neighbors was a hoarder. He passed away, they deep cleaned the apartment, and the roach problem stopped right away. Roaches still need to feed and breed. Once you take that away no more roaches.
Baltimore is a tough town. The roaches have a reputation to maintain.
Living in a city in Europe in a very decent apartment in a building that was erected in the 1880s (sic), this article made me chuckle - but also feel bad about how the throwaway society of the 21st century has extended even to things that are supposed to last.
The only issues are zoning laws which apparently prevent us from fixing "mundane" things - such as the windows making you feel like the people in the square below are actually in your living room. I wish that wasn't the case.