Except for the leak all of these issues are mainly caused by the tenant. Mold growing in the bathroom is because they're not airing it properly and don't clean it. Roaches and other insect infestations mostly appear because of mishandled food waste and not cleaning the kitchen and floor sufficiently.
"The Heart of a Dog". M.Bulgakov.
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 are. Is this a case of a total lack of self-reflection? Or a post to scare people away from becoming landlords?
roaches need to come from somewhere. Even if your apartment is spotless, someone else in the building might not be...
The roaches too if they are in your kitchen call a exterminator. Don't leave food out at night, clean all crumbs.
If you don't take care of those things even in a a new building they will appear on their own after 2 years.
When you are looking for a new apartment you are always trying to find the best place that fits your budget, so you will always find it near the peak of the cycle and see it going downhill in front of your eyes.
Just a theory.
Seeing mold in joints is not unusual depending on the conditions, but it's also easily fixable.
For cockroaches either there is none in your area, either get one in a year "by mistake", but if it's a recurring events the problem is likely food or garbage that sits longer than it should.
The first few months, you're so impressed how smart everyone is, how competent, what a great organisation it is. By 18 months in, you've decided everyone is an idiot, the organisation is utterly hopeless, and at 2 years you quit.
Never experienced anything like this with apartments though - lived in my last one for 9 years and loved it.
Frankly, I wouldn't want to ride the elevator with the author either.
I do end up changing apartments after the two year lease period because I get bored of the area or the landlord raises the rent.
And a plus is that when it breaks down the only fumes it gives off is pure oxygen, unlike other cleaners like bleach. It did such a good job that I use peroxide as a general purpose cleaner now.
I will add one note that you should rinse your hands regularly if cleaning with peroxide. Just a few days ago I had a leaky spray nozzle, and the peroxide was on my finger long enough that it was able to soak in. It turned my skin chalk-white and caused an uncomfortable bubbling sensation inside my skin. I had no idea it was even a reaction that could happen. It only lasted for a few hours, but it's not something I would want to happen again.
In the many years I lived there... the place was pretty much identical. Sure, it'd probably need a deep clean for the (faux?) wooden floor that gets dirt into the crevices... but that's it?
Even back home in India, we've lived in buildings made around the 1990s iirc. They're perfectly fine, and apart from outdated floor plans, there's nothing problematic about their age at all.
Though, I just remembered one thing. In India, everything is made of concrete, and even in NL, beyond the outer concrete walls, the inner walls - even though often drywall-like - are very "high quality". They're extremely soundproof and fireproof (the latter of which I unfortunately learnt post a fellow neighbour's fire. Their room was burnt down to the bedframe, the neighbours were just fine. Never leave your cooking unattended, folks!)
Even though the house is really old, it has been taken care of. There is no mold, the doors are still the same original ones, the fireplaces with decorative tiles are still there, and the wooden fireplace parts are still in good condition. I don't know how they did it, but it was built rather well.
Interesting tidbit: on the ceiling there was something like a Star of David. After asking LLMs what it was, one of them said that when Australia became a country, the Federation Star had only six points, denoting the newly incorporated states, but later a seventh point was added. Gemini told me that the frieze details were typical for the 1901-1910 period, and this helped me date the house.
This took about 10 minutes. Before, it would probably have taken me at least several hours of Googling.
The vent stops working in the bathroom, as the author states? Get maintenance to fix it ASAP.
Roaches in the kitchen? Exterminator.
Leak in the living room? Maintenance. More than once? Get a lawyer ready.
It should be mentioned that this was a rental out in rural nowhere, so no dramatic price hikes. The house was also paid off years before it became a rental.
Our family did janitorial services, which usually came to fixing some smaller things once or twice a year. Nothing extreme.
For us, it was smooth sailing. I really think the key was rent stability.
From previous personal experience as a renter in a high cost of living area, though, it seemed like landlords were extremely focused on raising rent. If they felt that they couldn't raise rent enough (where I live there are regulations), they'd try every trick in the book to cancel your tenancy contract/agreement, because then they could set a new rent for the next one.
Some such units were more or less revolving doors with new tenants every 1-2-3 years.
Only as a student did I see slummy apartments rented out by actual slumlords. Those were professional landlords that owned tens to hundreds of rentals, aimed at students, and seemed to follow a strict maximize rent/minimize upkeep philosophy.
As far as communities are concerned, the best places to live are the places where landlords/management and residents/tenants both do their parts to keep things clean and habitable. Teamwork makes the dream work.
Sure, if your kitchen was on the moon, you wouldn't have a bug issue. That would still be dirty.
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.
Like, central ventilation is not magical unobtainable technology. Simple heat recovery even vastly improves heating costs in a way insulation never can.
An honourable mention to fitting Cavity Wall Insulation, heavily sold and encouraged by UK government energy saving schemes thorough the 1990's and 2000's.
Except by stuffing the wall cavity, you provide a nice moisture bridge to outside whilst simultaneously stopping air circulating in the cavity and whipping away moisture; thus an explosion of mould.
The policy was a disaster, as getting the stuff removed costs a small fortune.
They also imply that is always happen.
> I've noticed this myself with every apartment I've ever lived in.
Same for the cockroaches. You can be victim of a neighbor’s lack of care. But if it happens in every flat, maybe you're the problem.
I'm all-in for blaming landlord's of taking money from renters and not putting any money back on helping keeping the flat in a livable state. But some of the issue the author is pointing out, and the fact that they happen in every flat, make me think that maybe part of the blame is on them.
The worst, and again very common, is when the paint is so cheap it can't be cleaned easily - when you use anything that can actually clean the mold (soapy water + a bit of vinegar is my preference, but baking soda, very weak bleach solution, or commercial mold cleaners) it also destroys the paint.
Condensation itself is a function of the air conditions (temperature and relative humidity ie dew point) and surface temperatures. All surfaces should be comfortably above the dew point to prevent mold. You can use a hygrometer to measure the air, and an infrared thermometer to measure surface temperatures.
I agree that a dehumidifier helps but you basically need one in every room. Where I live you can easily take out 10 liters a day from every room during the humid season (which is the maximum capacity of the machine I rented).
We bought two after moving to Ireland. Both have drainage hoses. One has a pump and empties into the kitchen sink, the other has no pump and the drainage hose empties into the shower. No more mold problems.
Apart from a brief spell when I was very young and my family lived in a 1950s council house I've never lived in a building as new as that... and I'm 60 and have lived in 11 different properties. But that's the UK and Edinburgh for you...
Edit: Never had any mould problems but then again most of the places I lived had draughty sash windows...
oogali•1d ago
By the default nature of the bathroom being a humid environment (relative to the rest of any house), my wife and I squeegee our shower after each use, and attack the tile weekly in order to keep it free of mildew.
It’s easier for both the current tenants and landlords to defer maintenance by respectively, moving to a new building that matches your expectations and renting your unit to someone whose expectations matches the current state of the unit.
Both approaches don’t require addressing the previous maintenance “debt”. That’s why it feels like it’s all downhill after the first 2 years — either inside your unit, or in the building’s common spaces, or both.