This story makes no sense. $3700 can get you a nice 1 bedroom anywhere in SF, so it’s unclear why they couldn’t have found another place. If you’re renting, you find mold, and your landlord does nothing then by CA law you have the right to break your lease for unsafe living conditions.

The author’s LinkedIn is filled with executive/founder/CEO roles (and claiming a 7 figure exit) and yet still needing to use GoFundMe for $50k?

Also don’t understand how his existing health insurance through his work would not cover him. He claims he doesn’t have it anymore because they wouldn’t treat him? I’ve never heard of a situation where you get insurance through your work and you are dropped because they won’t treat you for some reason.

Lastly the mold is clearly visible in all the videos and pics he linked! It’s not like they four years later decided to pull out some carpet or something and only then discovered the place was filled with mold. They seriously lived there for 4 years without questioning that at all? If the story is true (questionable, really) then I would have to question their mental capacity if they thought nothing of all the clear as day black mold all over their apartment while getting sick without thinking twice about it.

This article is literally nonsense, it’s at the same level of medical rigor as an anti-vax rant, and appears to be crafted intentionally to get people susceptible to this kind of narrative to give them money.

I can’t believe it’s being taken seriously here.

It's really sad that in US you have to ask for donations for your healthcare, this is absurd in a country on this level. I live in EU and I have been to US (and SFO) and I feel like live a more comfortable life here in EU. And I live in the "poorer" Slovakia (compared to west EU). I don't need to think about costs if I get sick or injured (+ I get social support in case I can't work during that time).

> We eventually discovered the apartment building we were living in was built in 1908.

Come to England, we have houses built in 1600. Growing up in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the entire country, living in SF and having to wait for a few fixes (fix your own damn doorbell?) to your apartment is not Victorian level penury.

But man if I’m not enjoying the juxtaposition of Mr Crypto Blockchain Free Thinker with ‘why won’t someone fix my doorbell for me’: https://trentlapinski.com/

> We eventually discovered the apartment building we were living in was built in 1908. Yes, we were living in a “sick” building that was over 100 years old, and never knew. We even found photos of our former apartment in historical archives dating back to the 1920’s.

Is being just a hundred years old some kind of inherent problem? Obviously rotting is bad but they talk about discovering that it existed in 1908 like they found out that it’s a time machine, or that people didn’t take photos in the 20s. What’s the big deal about the age?

> after we finally called the city, their inspectors discovered a number of safety, structural, and health violations

They probably should have called the city on day one of moving in. Did they really go years believing this place was inhabitable? Did they never have a friend stop by and see the shitty conditions and insist they should call the city?

There is an inspection department who can haul your landlord into court. You can also withhold rent when your unit is in these conditions and if you show up to court with the photos from these posts, your landlord will be in for a bad time.

They claim the building suffered from lack of oversight from the city; and sure the city didn’t know it was being rented out. But it also suffered from lack of someone actually notifying the city.

> At one point our doorbell stopped working, resulting in at least a half dozen packages being stolen (..) It took us over 9 months of emails and complaints to the landlords to finally get the doorbell replaced

Is this a fucking joke? Remote doorbell costs like 4USD. You should just buy it yourself...

> 3,657 USD per month for an apartment

It is cheaper to go to EU by plane, get a job for like one month, get proper healthcare and come back ;)

> We were paying $3,657.60 per month for an apartment built in 1908 that got us and our dog severely sick

Why did you not move ? $3600 will get you a nice 1bd in San Francisco...

I’ve been paranoid about how bad places in SF can be, and have had some issues with mold occasionally. I have a rent controlled apartment I’ve been in for 8 years, but I’ve done the maintenance myself to improve the place and keep health issues down, which largely boils down to making sure surfaces are sealed and cleanable:

Paint the bathroom and use a mold killing primer.

Refinished hardwood floors.

Wash walls with TSP and paint using an oil-based primer (only one room so far, this was more for lead-based paint sealing)

Keep the windows cracked often

Clean the bathroom walls with bleach often (several times a year)

Clean some other room walls with bleach occasionally (once a year)

Clean window sills a few times a year

Bought a dehumidifier (I will actually buy another soon)

I don’t pay $3k+ a month though. One of the reasons I did all that work is precisely because I have been worried about moving to a new place, spending s fortune, only to find the landlord has never maintained it or knows how terrible it is.

9 months of stolen packages because of a broken doorbell? Here, I'll help https://www.amazon.com/Zeapa-Receivers-Transmitter-Indicator...

The only thing more toxic than the mold in the apartment are the comments here.

Yeah it sounds like Trent could have handled the situation better. It also sounds like he didn't and is now pretty screwed. There's no need to pile on.

In the end I just don't think this post belongs on HN but I guess upvotes don't lie.

I am no lawyer but it sound like the landlords are liable in a huge way.

This is promoting victim culture. Many red flags and many GoFundMe links.

If you can’t afford a lifestyle, move. If you can’t afford the lifestyle, but continue to live there, don’t create a gofundme and craft a sob story highlighting your negligence.

On a positive note, you can get a job, graduate high school, and not have kids out of wedlock (dogs are not cheap either). You have all 3 of those going for you. You are tougher than you think.

You should reject all of those GoFundMe dollars or have a plan to repay people who donated.

For $3700 a month you can live like a king in a 300m²+ serviced mansion apartment here

"We are both suffering from lingering neurological damage, chronic fungal infections on our skin, GIs, sinuses, and even my ear canals. I’ve even lost some hearing (possibly permanently) in my left ear. Our health and immune systems are still compromised and we need regular access to a low EMF infrared sauna, hyperbaric oxygen chambers, and may even need stem cells to make a full recovery so we can regain our stamina, mental faculties, get married, and hopefully if we still can, have children. The clock is ticking on our recovery so we can try to have children and we simply can’t wait or rely on the possibility of the courts to rule in our favor a year or two from now."

Gonna need to see some peer reviewed medical journal citations regarding effects of mold in humans to take any of these claims seriously.

"low EMF infrared sauna, hyperbaric oxygen chambers, stem cells..."

Stem cells?!... to treat what exactly?

You can't exactly stroll into a pharmacy with an Rx for a petri dish of freshly harvested stem cells for self administered intracerebral injection.

As someone planning to move to San Francisco from outside the US soon, is living in SF really as bad as all the blogs make it to be?

I chose SF mainly because of its proximity to the outdoors (which I value highly) and relative lack of a concrete jungle feeling compared to NYC

EDIT: I have visited SF a few times for work before, and found the homelessness and filth to be confined to a few neighborhoods..

This is the most san francisco thing ever..

The toxicity in the comments section here is revolting. Seriously disappointed in HN here.

Anyways back to the post, it would seem like the landlord should be liable for all these damages.

San Francisco has a ton of problems that literally just don't exist in other first world countries. From overpriced low quality apartments with toxic mold to so much poverty and financial desperation that one's grocery delivery gets stolen in 10 minutes, SF has never appealed to me in the slightest bit even as a software engineer.

I hope they're able to find the help they need, and I appreciate their bravery in speaking out. Don't let the oddly defensive anonymous keyboard warriors silence you.

So interesting (and sad). Is there a simple way for people to detect mold in apartments without opening the walls ?

Is GoFundMe really a popular way to pay for healthcare costs in the US?

For $3700 you can have a brand new apartment in the Dogpatch of SF... if I find mold I am not staying, especially if the landlord won't fix it.

There's a lot about this story that just doesn't seem to add up... its weird.

Author should have posted a 'Roast me' article on Reddit. It would've been faster.

I feel stupider for having read this, but I get solace from the idea that fools are giving other fools money. Keeps the fools from bothering me.

I hate to say this seeing what the OP is going through: But this seems largely their responsibility. While the landlord, in theory, should provide these baseline services of cleaning and repair, sometimes you got to take matters with your hands.

I have been in this situation before and there were either one of these two solutions: Fix things yourself if you can't afford a new place; or find a new place and make sure things are fixed. I prefer finding a new place but sometimes you can't afford that and need to take matters with your hands.

Where should I start?

> It took us over 9 months of emails and complaints to the landlords to finally get the doorbell replaced.

Replace the doorbell yourself. Should be easier than the endless contact with your landlord. Should be fixed in 1-2 days. Return the old doorbell when you are leaving the property.

> We ran home, but by the time we got there the box was gone.

I'm not really sure. But if I got a package stolen, I'll probably stop ordering delivery. I thought delivery is mostly useful for those living in suburbs but if you are in the city, just walk to the nearest store? And that would help preserve the community too, right?

> the gold rush mentality of the tech industry, which is mostly a lie.

Which sounds like the OP profile? https://trentlapinski.com/

If you think it's B.S. don't do it for the sake of money or fitting in. It'll just make you miserable.

Let's look at the photos:

> https://techpost.io/uploads/mold-document-4.jpg

This is "inside" the house. It'll take months for such a mold to develop. They probably have a problem with water but hell sure they have a problem with cleaning. Mold is easy to remove from my experience. Just clean the damn thing.

Tip: Paint is cheap. Buy a bucket and paint it yourself.

> https://imgur.com/a/VCFLDxz

I might be wrong here but this dust looks like it built up over a very long period. Looks like the guy and his girlfriend don't clean up?

> https://techpost.io/uploads/mold-document-2.jpg

Jesus. Did it ever come up to your mind that this doesn't look healthy? If you didn't see it, do you ever change your bed sheets?

You are paying $3500/month. The repairs could have been done by you in the weekend or the end of the day. Probably costing you less than $1000 for a one year value worth until new repairs.

Here is a tip: If your landlord is non-cooperative, tell him you are fixing it yourself but will invoice him later. He might/might not accept that but at least you get it fixed.

tl;dr: Time to grow up?

The best house I've ever lived in was built in 1850. As a sibling comment points out, this is definitely survivorship bias, since only the "good" wooden houses survive this long.

Survival bias in many cases means that a building that is still standing from 1908 is better quality than many built in 2008.

Lead paint and knob and tube wiring are the most common problems you find with houses of that vintage, if they've not been updated. They are largely before asbestos, which is the massive problem with mid-century construction.

American houses are made with cheap wood most of the time. Especially when you live in an older home, these are highly attractive to moulds when the building isn't maintained.

There’s a craftsmanship to a certain kind of old home, that in my opinion — if well maintained — can be superior to a lot of new construction. The trend towards making new homes super “tight” created all sorts of ventilation issues that took a while for the industry to sort out. Nicely designed old homes breath. That’s key to keeping mold away. What often messes up old homes is some crappy renovation work that negatively impacts the building’s envelope.

It depends on where in the city the building was built. 1908 is just a few years after the great quake of 1906. Houses and buildings were built very quickly during an era of non-existent building codes.

I lived in one in the Tenderloin for a few years. It needed a lot of TLC and was horribly maintained. Nobody wanted no spend the money to keep it looking nice. That's one of the downsides to the architecture of the era. The building was gorgeous, but even just properly cleaning it took an extra effort the landlord wasn't willing to pay for.

I’ll echo what other happy SF residents have said - it’s pretty great if you’re able to put yourself in a good part of town. Look I’ll be honest - your experience in SF is going to correlate with your ability to afford living here (I hate to say it but it’s true). If you’re up for spending $3-$5k/month on an apartment, you can live in a nice area (Hayes Valley, Marina, Cow Hollow, Pacific Heights, etc.) and life there is pretty darn good.

There’s access to some of the most spectacularly beautiful cycling on earth (just across the Golden Gate Bridge), the Presidio is a beautiful, Marina Green/Chrissy Field is beautiful, Golden Gate Park is beautiful, the food is amazing and there are wonderful new restaurants popping up all the time, the Mexican food (cheap!) is some of the best you’ll find.

There’s plenty of access to shared bikes and scooters (you don’t need to own a car), the CalTrain makes it reasonably easy to get down to the peninsula, and the competition between Uber and Lyft keeps ridesharing costs relatively low (for now - that’ll change).

It takes only 20-30 minutes to get to SFO, United has pretty good coverage of the whole world from there, so if you like to travel it’s easy to get away.

And, if you’re in tech, there’s plenty of other like-minded people around so there’s always a group of folks to nerd out with. And in general I’ve found people are very welcoming of newcomers (but of course this depends on the social circle you find yourself in - I perhaps got lucky).

I know this isn’t the “popular” opinion because it’s easy to hate on SF for the various PR things you read about (it’s expensive, there really is a bad homelessness/street encampment problem, and the NIMBYism/old coots voting in their own interest can be annoying), but if you happen to fit one of the molds this city is well-suited to handling, it’s quite lovely here.

That ALL being said - there are days where I look at how much I spend in rent and how much it would cost to own an apartment and I do daydream about moving to Vietnam and living like a king....

One of the cliche transplants from SF to NYC: The lack of concrete jungle, and that desire from people both who predated the tech deluge and those who arrived because of it (like you are planning to be) is precisely why it has become as bad as the blogs make it to be.

I think some things are not as bad as the blogs make it be, and many things a lot worse. In the latter category:

- there is now a "fire season". Yes, those precious outdoors, swathes of it gets burned and the beautiful CA air gets filled with smoke from burnt forests, houses and people

- the city is politically paralyzed. Everyone now treats their SF stay as even more temporary (moreso than the natives already complained about before, because now it's crappy to live in for everyone, not just the poor people) = limited investment in political future

- diversity shrinks every year. It gets more white/asian, more male, more single/childless, more tech, and more techie-centric entertainment, and less everything else everyday

- offline businesses are narrowing operation. Not merely "local" and "small" businesses dying, but even chain stores are not able to find staff or attract enough foot traffic because...the city simply doesn't have that many people out and about anymore. Business hours are shrinking, stores are receding to the downtown center streets, and service staff is disappearing. There are hardly 50 stores left in all of SF that are open 24 hours, even my podunk hometown in Oman, Middle East has more.

- the tourist industry is dying. People used to visit and fall in love with SF. Now, they get embarrassed about the state of the city (the more obvious stuff like homelessness, cost of living, filth) and leave trying to forget about this city.

I still love SF, and would love to move back if they can turn the ship around. As a non-US citizen I cannot even vote, and felt utterly helpless in the face of rampant NIMBYism preventing any development, upzoning, housing reform, transit reform, tax reform, homelessness relief, police retraining, non-tech subsidies, etc. But over the course of the 6-7 years I lived there, it went from a "this city is wonderful" love to the kind of love you have for a drug-addled suicidal family member.

It is incredibly relieving to see NYC being run extremely competently in contrast, and while I vaguely miss the weather, imo the summers here are better, the winters perfectly tolerable, seasons are a nice way to keep track of the passage of time, and I can enjoy nature more every time I go out of town.

Look, everyone who’s happy (like me) with their loving conditions in SF isn’t going to write a blog post about how their apartment is fine.

All the "SF is a dystopian nightmare" posts are referring to a few downtown neighborhoods which represent probably less than 5% of the city by land area. It's a huge problem and it sucks if you have to go to those areas regularly, but most of the city isn't like that. I live in the Inner Richmond and it's one of the nicest neighborhoods I've ever lived in (I've lived in a bunch all over). The combination of natural beauty, urban amenities, walkability, laid back vibe, etc. is amazing. There are dozens of other neighborhoods with similar qualities to choose from.

The first thing you'll notice when you get to San Francisco proper is how many homeless people there and how dirty it is (google "sidewalk poop"). My recommendation would be to visit before you move.

I would recommend spending a week or two there first. I was astonished how many crazy and homeless people are on the streets and theft/crime levels (broken windows on cars is now nothing uncommon). Do you want to actually live directly in SF or somewhere in the surrounding cities?

It surely depends on what you consider "the outdoors" and what your baseline for proximity is, but speaking as someone whose definition of outdoor recreation skews towards mountain sports in both summer and winter I would not consider SF to be proximate to the outdoors and would recommend looking further north (Portland, Seattle, Vancouver) if you want to live somewhere urban-ish and have quick, regular access to the backcountry.

I wouldn't move without visiting first, I found the place incredibly depressing.

Dire poverty, brutal injustice, and blatant dysfunction at every corner, in one of the most moneyed cities in the world. A human centipede of grift at city scale. Nice bridge tho.

It is highly dependent on where in the city you live. Your experience will be drastically different, but then again, so will your rent.

> Just clean the damn thing.

I think the current (my) generation was never taught that things need to be cleaned and maintained regularly to stay in proper operating condition.

Knives need sharpening, boots need waxing, buttons need reinforcing etc.

>Mold is easy to remove from my experience. Just clean the damn thing.

External mold is, mold inside the walls is not. And if you have mold inside the walls then no amount of cleaning outside the walls will fix the situation.