we lived around thumb plaza area in pu dong, due to piecing drilling caused by damn renovation upstairs, we temporally rented another apartment nearby to stay with the concern of our 3 months old baby's health and sleep quality. nobody expected it turned out to be even worse with such a good intention.

we found the bedroom was filled with pungent smell once we moved in at night. (p.s. the bed was not there when we were checking, the landlady said she'd furnish her apartment before we sign the contract, it looks new but i bet it just had been repainted to look good. in addition, the closet also carries some strange oder), i just felt so uncomfortable to breathe, but try to calm myself down by telling myself maybe it just needed some ventilation since it hadn't been rented out for a long time as what the landlady said.

the following day our baby's ez came back like last week before we moved in lead to a phone call to agency rep who helped us to rent this apartment, they explained that it's just due to my baby is allergic to the new environment or dust, then hung up impatiently. so, i bought some charcoal bags to put in bedroom for absorbing the smell, and might be even formaldehyde. and moved baby's crib and our stuff to stay at the living room only.

2nd day's staying at there, my mum who's visiting us recently also found some rashes on her face ensured me that im not making a fuss over small things as a new mum. my husband and i packed up our stuff after his work and moved back to our original apartment immediately. still, my heart was broken to see our baby's eyes got red and swollen, kept on watering. any mums know babies at this age is capable of crying but not creating tears.

we stayed at that poisonous apartment for only 2 days, but the landlady refused to return our deposit back plus charged us 3 days staying fee by showing no sympathy to our baby. irony , she herself is pregnant at this time. how much more evil could that woman be? she just kept on making empty promises that she'd ask sb to test the air quality of the apartment and confidently swear nothing wrong with her room but my baby's fault of being allergic to new stuff. a week past by, we haven't got any even informal report about her apartment yet.

i don't know whether it is her plot to get deposit fee of providing unlivable rooms for people who'll definitely break the contract due to health concern. im really busy and weak to fight back right now, but feel responsible of writing it down to remind other people esp mums.

she's a chinese, but an english teacher. which explained why her target for house renting is foreigners, higher rent, less chance of fighting back.

do NOT fall into this pit she diged:

1203 room, building 2, lian yang nian hua. 910 ding xiang Rd. (nearby carrefour of thumb plaza)
浦东 丁香路910弄 联洋年华 2号楼 1203室

didn't you notice the smell when u checked out the apartment? or did you not even visit the place before you moved in?

purejimcn wrote:didn't you notice the smell when u checked out the apartment? or did you not even visit the place before you moved in?

we didnt be picky while checking the apartment, just walk around quickly and it SERIOUSLY LOOKed nice (by appearance. the quality shown the true color later when it's too late), in addition, the painted bed wasn't there yet, the pregnancy landlady said she'd put all the furniture and electronics very soon after we decided to rent, or else she'll take her time to get everything ready little by little. also coz we kinda chose it out of desperation, the original apartment is way too noisy for me, let alone a 3 months old baby. we needed to move to a quiet place as soon as we could. our attention all spent on making sure no renovation around in new place. the landlady WAS very kind and friendly while we were checking, she speaks good english and made lots of compliments on the apartment to my hubby. ah... wasting deposit for nothing is an issue, but it hurts more to see what my baby suffers.

u might wanna know why im not fight back? the landlady just pulls the strings behind the scene now, the real estate agency rep is on behalf of her to fool us around esp about the air quality test report. we even never get chance to see her any more. what's more, the money is being held tightly on her hand, no matter how hard i reason out.

1. Just move out. Your health comes first.
2. The real estate agency should be helping YOU.
3. Post the name of the R/E here.
4. Demand the deposit back, as she has broken the agreement.
5. No deposit, tell her you will take to court.
6. Last resort, bring in some hired heavies, or strip the place, and sell off.
7. Check out any new place more carefully.

More:
8. If you cannot talk to your landlady, FORCE the agency to chase her. They have an obligation as "go between".
9. Contact monalisalee for a good agent who will work for YOU.


John.

monalisalee wrote:1. Just move out. Your health comes first.
2. The real estate agency should be helping YOU.
3. Post the name of the R/E here.
4. Demand the deposit back, as she has broken the agreement.
5. No deposit, tell her you will take to court.
6. Last resort, bring in some hired heavies, or strip the place, and sell off.
7. Check out any new place more carefully.

definitely agree with the list 1. health is most important.

"the real estate agency should be helping YOU."--- afraid not! they usually play virtual, but tend to weigh their scale on money side for themselves. if they FORCE the landlady to do the test, they will lose their 35% service fee according to the rent paid by her. as for our 35%, nah, they insisted that they FOUND the place for us to stay which means they did their job.

I would agree with 1 and 7. As for 2,4,5 good luck with that. Most rental contracts don't have any recourse any poor service. Stay away from 6, because most likely the contract now makes you liable.

If you are willing to spend some money, hire an air quality tester yourself. If the air test shows levels above the Chinese residential regulations, you have instant recourse to break the contract with return of deposit.

Last year when I moved into an apartment with recent reflooring, the going rate for indoor air quality testing was about 500rmb per room tested. Unfortunately, all my room tests came back pretty much right at the limit for VOCs and Formaldehyde since outside temperatures were dropping quickly by the time I scheduled the test.

If you somehow manage to get the landlady or real estate agency to do the test, I would be worried about them finding a tester "friendly" to their side to fudge the testing or results. Of course, since you have already moved out, getting this testing done might be tricky without keys to the apartment...

Anyhow, the bedding foam, cheap particle board, cheap plywood, paints, etc. here all give off heavy doses of VOCs and formaldehyde. There is just no way you can newly furnish an apartment here and expect it to be livable for several weeks unless you have very tolerant nose, eyes, lungs, and skin.

BTW, bags of charcoal will do next to nothing for absorbing VOCs and formaldehyde, unless you are actively forcing air through it. For low levels of gasses, I would suggest a Blueair or IQair air filter with loads of activated charcoal in the filters. However, even then, unless you remove the source of the outgassing, you will not get good or lasting results.

mamasoilder wrote:"the real estate agency should be helping YOU."--- afraid not!

Sadly, that seems to be a lot of people's experience. In my case, once on the recommendation of colleagues and once through Monalisalee, I found two agents who have provided excellent service.

Mind you, both sets of landlords have been great too. Maybe good agents have good landlords and vice versa. Personal recommendation is the key I think.

Yeah, my comments were very much "tounge in cheek", but I believe in fighting fire with fire.

Where I come from, there is a Real estate institute that has a very strict protocol for agents to follow.
Anyone breaching the rules can smartly be stripped of their license.
Hell, half the agents here don't even bother with a license.

The industry is very young here, like around 12 years, with virtually no rules or regulations, so hopefully will gradually improve.
Meantime it seems, as Humac suggests, the better agents, will only work with the better landlords, and this seems to be the main way of dealing with bad landlords.
I know prob. 1/2 the landlords should be lined up against a wall in front of a firing squad.
I have had 4 landlords, and all have been absolute top notch, so could be a lot of truth in good agents having good landlords.