INTERESTING conversation that I had with a real estate agent about mold and liability and renters. SAD...

[Guest guest]

A few weeks ago I met a (actually very nice) person who I just

yesterday discovered was a real estate agent.

Talker that I am, I asked him what he thought about the mold issue and

told him about our experience

and flight and how horrifying and hard on us it had been.

We had a very interesting sort of free ranging discussion and the

subject of people being forced to

throw their belongings away came up.

He said that the typical reaction of a real estate professional when

they get a formal mold complaint

would be to evict the tenant as rapidly as possible to do remediation,

and that if they do that ASAP, " they can't be held liable for any

damage to belongings " .

Taken sort of aback, I asked him " what if they are sick, have lost

their job, and cant rent without a job "

he said that was good, because then they would not be able to sue for

anything, because any health

problems they got would then " clearly be their fault " ..

I then desxcribed the situation we had been in where we had complained

many times to our landlord

and basically they tried to pretend that they had not received them.

He said that that " might be more difficult " but that the fact that

they had stayed in the apartment would always

work against somebody, even if they moved out and only went back in to do tests.

I was trying to explain the shock of suddenly not having an income and

not being able to just buy new,

oftentimes, the cost of doing that can run into many tens of thousands

of dollars, not something that

many people who have lost everything in this economy can afford to do.

He said that that was a regrettable situation but his first obligation

was to reduce his client's

(he manages properties) exposure, and so in those situations, the

imperative was to get the sensitized people out.

Then I asked what kind of remediation they would do and he basically

said clean it with bleach and paint it over,

and when I borught up pssible hidden mold, he said " what people can't

see cant hurt them " .

When I told him how much of our property (over $10k worth) we had had

to throw away, he said (looking QUITE apologetic)

that he had also heard that and that that situation perversely also

worked in his favor because given the amount of

information that I had described that advised people to throw

everything away, juries

would probably agree if a defense lawyer argued that nomatter what

they had kept, if they had kept ANYTHING at all,

" given the amount of the lawsuit " (he said winking..) he would argue

that the plaintiffs " should have thrown everything away "

and jury would then penalyze any plaintiff in court who kept (he used

the word " hoarded " ) moldy belongings.

(completely ignoring the reality that they could not possibly know the

long ordeal ahead in court or if they could afford to buy new ever

again,

not having their health and often not being able to work..)

I explained how many having lost their job, often losing pensions,

facing loss of their rented home,

I didn't mention healthcare but since insurance usually comes through

one's job, but I should have mentioned also possibly their access to

health care, and then, being required to get rid of everything they

own, eviction imminent, THEN they have to try to find another

place..often without job.

(I also didn't mention that this could be another disaster because

given their lack of resources, it could quite possibly be a place

others don't want, i,e, another moldy one..)

I said that the situation they would be faced with having to move was

basically an impossible one.. he agreed, he said that he had never

really thought about it but that it was,

he had never " encountered that exact situation " , but he " had heard of them " .

Bizarrely, he was as I said, apart from this, actually a very nice

guy.. the kind of person who clearly tries to help people out.

(thats how we met, him doing a sort of good deed for me..)

Because of that, and his candor, even though I was starting to get

pretty distressed at his logic, all I could really say was " thank you

for explaining your side of the story " , and then something stupid but

sincere along the lines of

" if you can ever think of a way we as a society might be able to solve

this problem, Id like to hear it " ..

Its taken me a while to really digest this..

But now, I guess the logical image that sticks in my mind was that the

eviction of tenants " for their own good "

was basically, by his own admission, a STRATEGY to TRANSFER ALL

LIABILITY for EVERYTHING from owner

to tenants- Thats basically what he was telling me, WHY they did what

they did to us..

They create an IMPOSSIBLE challenge which a very great many (everybody

who had lost their job, the sickest, and also

all who could not afford to just move right away) In cities, where

vacancy rates are low, and competition for places high,

almost everybody would fail this test..whether they get rid of or kept

their belongings, with the extra benefit to the owner,

if either they kept any of their belongings,

or were not able to immediately rent another place - of further

stacking the odds in his favor of not being held accountable..

Of never

having to compensate the tenants, at all, for anything.

.... anyway, what can I say, there you have it...