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I'm not sure if this is the proper forum since it pertains to renting also but I figured it's more of a house issue.
I live in Los Angeles and am considering renting a place by the beach. Toured the property late last week and had some concerns based on what the landlord told me. This rental is a duplex/apartment with garages on the bottom and 2 units on top above the garages. It was built in the 70s.
Here's the concerns I have:
1. Landlord said the unit was built before new standards/codes were put in place for earthquakes. Apparently units built around 1980 and later needed to be built with steel beams between the bottom and top, this was built before so it does not have this and "may" be more at risk if an earthquake hits. LL said he'd have to tear it down and start over to make it up to the current code. Is this thing going to just crumble in an earthquake or is it more like, it probably won't but you never know? I don't want to live in fear. Earthquakes large enough to do this are very rare and it's been standing nearly 50 years already.
2. LL said lead paint was used around the time this unit was built but has no knowledge if lead paint was used or not in this specific unit. Said it has been painted safely many times since the original build and it's no issue as long as I don't go digging into the walls and disturb it.
3. Biggest concern here: LL said he removed popcorn ceiling a few weeks ago. Said many units back in the 70s used asbestos but again he can't say whether or not this unit had/has asbestos. Said he just hired a crew and ripped out the popcorn ceiling in a day. Made it evident they didn't check for asbestos or anything. If it was indeed asbestos, am I in harm after the fact? Or would just the people who did the work be in harm?
Oh and it's in a Tsunami zone too but again, small risk but a bit worrisome just to hear!
Sorry for so may questions but the unit is very clean and looks nice but these issues concern me. I am not sure if these things are common in older units or if I should be concerned.
You are in more danger from an earthquake than anything else. Everything you list other than earthquake is so far down the danger list as to be random statistical noise. If you are paranoid, get a steel four poster bed with a canopy.
You are in more danger from an earthquake than anything else. Everything you list other than earthquake is so far down the danger list as to be random statistical noise. If you are paranoid, get a steel four poster bed with a canopy.
That's kinda what I figured as well.
I guess the asbestos thing worried me some since he seemed so lackadaisical about it. Saying he doubt it had asbestos and he took care of the ceiling quickly. Worried that the asbestos could have been thrown around the place and is waiting for the next person who lives there to disturb it.
Hardly anyone has actually read the regulations on asbestos. If you look up the allowable limits (fibers per cc of air) you will see that to really incur any risk according to the standards, you would basically have to be breathing in a cloud of asbestos dust for an extended period. Like pipefitters installing asbestos insulation on naval ships for 8-12 hours per day for months on end. Not like someone walking around in a house where there might have been some asbestos at one time.
Same thing with lead based paint. Do you have lead based paint in your house and you want to avoid being poisoned by it? Don't eat the paint off the walls.
1. Landlord said the unit was built before new standards/codes were put in place for earthquakes. Apparently units built around 1980 and later needed to be built with steel beams between the bottom and top, this was built before so it does not have this and "may" be more at risk if an earthquake hits. LL said he'd have to tear it down and start over to make it up to the current code. Is this thing going to just crumble in an earthquake or is it more like, it probably won't but you never know? I don't want to live in fear. Earthquakes large enough to do this are very rare and it's been standing nearly 50 years already.
2. LL said lead paint was used around the time this unit was built but has no knowledge if lead paint was used or not in this specific unit. Said it has been painted safely many times since the original build and it's no issue as long as I don't go digging into the walls and disturb it.
3. Biggest concern here: LL said he removed popcorn ceiling a few weeks ago. Said many units back in the 70s used asbestos but again he can't say whether or not this unit had/has asbestos. Said he just hired a crew and ripped out the popcorn ceiling in a day. Made it evident they didn't check for asbestos or anything. If it was indeed asbestos, am I in harm after the fact? Or would just the people who did the work be in harm?
Oh and it's in a Tsunami zone too but again, small risk but a bit worrisome just to hear!
Sorry for so may questions but the unit is very clean and looks nice but these issues concern me. I am not sure if these things are common in older units or if I should be concerned.
1. It survived the Northridge quake while others did not. Not sure that counts for anything, but it might make you feel more comfortable. Seems like there was a major quake in the 1970s too. Is it concrete? I might be a bit nervous in a concrete building built before earthquake standards. If it is wood, I would be more concerned about fire.
2. This is a lead paint is a required disclosure. However sine he knows nothing, it is unclear why he woudl bother with this. Perhaps he sees it as an abundance of caution, but that statement really does not protect him at all. So if you are worried, you can buy test kits that are pretty cheap, but they are often inaccurate. I have found both false positives and false negatives with them. However the better solution is simply avoid chewing or sucking on your window sills, moldings, and heat radiators. Also do not chew up the corners of your walls, or if you do, do not swallow it. This is more a concern for babies as adults are not likely the chew or suck on most painted parts of the house. Also if you are sanding the walls or moldings, keep pregnant women and babies out of the apartment until everything is cleaned up.
3. Completely irrelevant. If he removed it, it is gone. Asbestos is not some hugely toxic substance that if you look at some residue, it jumps into your body and poisons you. What you are worried about is breathing high concentrations of the fibers over long periods of time. It is not that likely the popcorn stuff has asbestos in it anyway. Everyone panics over popcorn ceiling, but when testing it, it tests negative. In any case, yours is gone. No worries. the best way to remove popcorn ceiling is by wetting it. By luck, the best way to control asbestos dust during removal is by wetting it. However there is a reason the workers may not have been all that concerned about it. Regardless of the materials asbestos or not, you woudl wear a mask while removing it anyway. Lots of things can be in popcorn ceiling mix that are not good to breathe.
If I had to guess I would guess the landlord is trying to be excessively cautious even though it sounds to me like they are doing it in a foolish manner. I do know that Santa Monica has or had strict rent control laws and landlords do or did wacky things to try to get around the rules, but I do not know enough about rent control to know whether there is any advantage to scaring away prospective tenants but a WAG migh be that they have some motive. Maybe they want to tear the building down and cannot unless they prove it is un-renatbale? .
I can't speak to the earthquake issue but asbestos and lead paint I know a bit about. Any home built before 1978 used lead paint. As a result you should be given a form that states whether the landlord has any knowledge of tests for lead paint. You should have the right to test for it but in all honesty if its been painted over the years that lead paint is buried and doesn't really pose a risk. If it was an old house with paint chipping on ancient wooden windows and you had an infant I would be concerned. Otherwise you should be good.
The asbestos could be an issue but likely not. If you are concerned you can get an air quality test that should answer your concerns.
Only partly tongue in cheek: I wonder how long it will be before California decids that tenants must be notified if someone drank coffee in the landlord's apartment or house before they moved in.
The notification laws are strict there, and there has to be a lot of (ahem) covering. If everything -no matter how miniscule- must be reported, then it is incumbent upon the person being "warned" to determine what is a real threat and what is statutory gripe.
I can't speak to the earthquake issue but asbestos and lead paint I know a bit about. Any home built before 1978 used lead paint. As a result you should be given a form that states whether the landlord has any knowledge of tests for lead paint. You should have the right to test for it but in all honesty if its been painted over the years that lead paint is buried and doesn't really pose a risk. If it was an old house with paint chipping on ancient wooden windows and you had an infant I would be concerned. Otherwise you should be good.
The asbestos could be an issue but likely not. If you are concerned you can get an air quality test that should answer your concerns.
Sorry but you do not know quite as much as you believe. Your first statement is untrue. Some houses built before 1978 used lead paint. Not all. Painting over lead paint reduces the risk but does to eliminate it.
High volumes of lead are known to cause developmental problems in young children who ingest it. It also might make adult men sterile. However the known verified danger is to young children and pregnant women.
You can ingest lead paint even if it has been painted over. You ingest it by either chewing or sucking on parts of the house and if you do it enough, the painted over lead paint will also be ingested. Thus, while painting over lead paint will somewhat reduce the risk of a child chewing or sucking lead off of painted surfaces, it does not eliminate it.
There is a slight risk of ingesting lead through breathing dust when paint is being sanded off. However when you are sanding off the paint, you sand off the lead paint along with whatever top coat was placed over it. The risk is not significantly reduced by painting a 1/1000th inch of latex over the lead. You can reduce risk by using HEPA
The third way lead typically gets ingested is if the paint is flaking off and gets eaten, falls into food, or breathed in (except paint does not normally come off in inhalable sized particles). Here again painting over it does not help much. if the lead paint is peeling, it will continue to peel and flake off after you paint it over. Painting over flaking paint does not re-bond it to the painted surface.
Painting over lead paint is certainly not a bad idea, and does provide a modicum of protection, but if you will have infants or toddlers in a home with lead paint, you may want to have it removed. If you remove it with a heat gun, be wary of the fumes. I could not find anything scientifically determining whether the fumes from heat stripping lead pain can carry lead into your system. Quite a lot of unfounded options on either side of Yes/no out there, but nothing that actually has any basis in anything that I could find.
I studied lead paint issues extensively after I discovered a house we lived in had lead paint and I had spent months and months heat stripping the paint off the wood moldings and casings. We also removed multiple layers of wallpaper with three to twelve layers of paint over the wallpaper. The house had not been painted since the 1970s or very possibly the 1950s. However everything had layers and layers of paint some of it going back almost 100 years. No idea whether any of the paint layers had lead in them, because they were all removed and gone when we first thought of the possibility of lead paint. We have five young kids living in the house. I immediately had all of the kids and adults tested for lead contamination. No one had any perceptible levels of lead in their blood. During this time, I spend at least a hundred hours researching lead paint and its risks and talking to expert consultants ont he subject. The first thing I learned is the risk is massively exaggerated. Asbestos is the same way (I learned about asbestos by involvement in asbestos litigation in the 1980s and 1990s). Still it is a real risk, and needs to be addressed if you are in a high lead environment and have babies/toddlers around. Even for adults, lead cannot be beneficial and it makes sense to take reasonable steps to avoid ingesting it.
As mentioned previously, the home lead paint test kits, are not all that useful. We used them and got all kinds of positive and negative results on the same layers of paint. I finally sent chips to a lab for testing. There was some lea paint in a few locations but most of it was not lead. It was only two colors that appeared in the third and fifth layers at some locations. The oldest paint (bottom layers had no lead in them). I was fortunate in that I was working with consultants and laboratories who did this kind of work and they wanted to maintain goodwill (to get future business) so hey did the testing and analysis for free. The lead paint was only found in a few locations and we ended up having most of those items tanked to remove all the paint.
My grandfather was a painter in and off from the 1920s through about 1970s. He mostly painted pig houses, barns and other outbuildings and basically bathed in lead paint during that time. Although he did not show any signs of problems until he was in his later 80s, he ended up having a lot of strokes and severe altzheimers in the last few years of his life. I always wondered whether the lead paint had anything to do with it. However he also did all kinds of other dirty work on and related to farms and was exposed to load s of now banned chemicals. Could have been anything. Lead paint has not been scientifically linked to altzheimers or strokes, but you never know.
Last edited by Coldjensens; 04-04-2018 at 09:11 AM..
Only partly tongue in cheek: I wonder how long it will be before California decides that tenants must be notified if someone drank coffee in the landlord's apartment or house before they moved in.
.......
Oh man, thanks for the chuckle and that's sadly so true. Yup, Cal-ee-for-nee-ya!
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Yup, Cal-ee-for-nee-ya! 
