Renting an apartment in Brighton (not Oak Square) with young children (Boston: apartments, to rent)

[mwal]

Hi,

My husband and I are looking to rent a place anywhere in the Allston-Brighton neighborhood. The catch is that we have two young children and brokers have been relunctant to show us places because of lead. Does anyone have experience figuring this out? We come from NYC where the concern is just about peeling lead paint but here it seems to be about any lead at all.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[kingeorge]

Tight regulations, and liability will make it unlikely that you will be let in the old non-deleaded place. There is no way around it, except to find a kid-friendly place which is akin to a lottery win nowadays. You might need to expand your search. Lead laws in MA have made renting with young kids a nightmare. There are places around but you need to dig deep, and be very fast. All the best.

[AbrasaxEos]

Having recently gone through this myself - the deal is usually this: MA law makes landlords liable for any high lead levels in children up until age six (I think - someone correct me on this if you know better than I), and further, if children under the age of six are to live in a place you own which is not deleaded (or built prior to 1978, which is most of the housing stock in Boston), you must do some type of lead remediation prior to their moving in which can be anything from encapsulation to a full-on lead abatement depending on the results of an inspection.

As a result, most landlords would really rather not bother on this front as it is expensive and time consuming. Furthermore, they aren't really allowed to raise the rent post-facto on a place, so they'll end up paying a lot of money to get the lead out for the same return on a tenant. So this is the reason why a lot of brokers are reticent in showing. LLs will usually find some reason to deny your application if you do manage to apply to rent the place in these cases, as they know you likely will not feel like spending the time or money to build a housing discrimination case against them when you are trying to find a place to move into in two months.

All of this is to say that it is tough, no bones about it. Not impossible, as lots of people have children here in Boston and not all of them own - but it will take some strategic planning and thinking. Firstly, is there any reason that you need to be in Brighton/Allston? Aside from the fact that neither of these neighborhoods are all that great for a small family (undergrad central - summer isn't too bad but once September 1 hits, you'll have quite a different experience), they are also probably the least likely areas (aside from Oak/Washington Square near the Newton border) to have LLs wwho have done or are willing to do lead abatement. Most of the apartments in this area are designed for undergrads who don't care about a crappy apt and are probably going to crap it up further, so most landlords just try to keep their places at the bare minimum of inhabitable space, and some not even this. You'll have better luck if you move west towards Newton ($$$), northwest towards Watertown ($$), and maybe south towards Brookline ($$$$). Of the three, Watertown is probably the most affordable, and it was where I recently found my own lead-free apartment.

You'll also need to be a bit ruthless if you do find a lead-free place you like. There is no going home to talk it over for a day with these places, as it will be gone when you call back! People regularly bring a checkbook to showings and cut a deposit on the spot if they like the place, so be prepared to do this! My wife and I talked everything out about what we wanted and such ahead of time so that when at the showing we could do a five minute huddle to be sure we were on the same page and be ready to take it. Best of luck, stay vigilant on craigslist, consider some of these other areas and you'll be able to find something I think.