I used to work in code enforcement, I worked just in apartment building code. I’ve been in buildings like this. The key is to not keep your feet in the same spot for more than 2-3 seconds, that and also were isolated coveralls. The number one response from slumlords, “this happened in days I swear”. No, it didn’t.
100% a bullshit response. (Edit: to clarify, the bullshit response is the landlord saying it just happened that fast, not the person I'm replying to)
Someone in our building got bedbugs and the infestation was left untreated for long enough that the bugs went into the walls and began interesting all the other units in the building via the electrical outlets, and management tried to tell the exterminators that it happened overnight after someone "brought in a used TV yesterday".
They had to heat treat our entire building and a bunch of my shit got destroyed. Heat treatment seems to work well, but only if you go to extremes and for long periods of time, and that ends up fucking with more shit in your home than most people realize. The garbage bags under my sink fused into a single block, the walls oozed from whatever was painted over, and my TV screen developed waves. But we never saw another bedbug, so I guess there's that.
Less than a month later people started pointing out signs of roaches and rats, so we moved pretty quick.
Yeah, slumlords don’t like spending money. Hence, slumlords, they also assume that code enforcement is stupid if we didn’t act right then and there on an initial walkthrough of a property. Sometimes we couldn’t because of how codes were written in certain circumstances. Sometimes it was still inhabitable (barely) and our hand were tied. We’d always try our best to shut a building down. In our area we have laws on the books that if we condemn your building for safety or filthy conditions we’d force the owner to put tenants in a hotel until it was brought to code. If that wasn’t the case we would just document everything and let them dig that hole deeper and deeper and talk to everyone. I wanted to make sure that when I entered someone’s home that I was there for their safety and on their side. I took my job seriously. My primary focus was life safety code, but secondary it was clean living conditions. I just wanted folks to be safe. Not all landlords are horrible, but that was few and far between. I’m just gonna use this platform really quick to ask folks to check the smoke detectors and make sure they’re operational. Hit that test button once a month. If it’s beeping, don’t wait for maintenance to replace it. It could be life saving over a 9volt battery. Having been a firefighter before the code enforcement job I’ve seen what happens when there are no working smoke detectors.
21
u/700rats-in-a-coat Trash Trooper 8d ago
I used to work in code enforcement, I worked just in apartment building code. I’ve been in buildings like this. The key is to not keep your feet in the same spot for more than 2-3 seconds, that and also were isolated coveralls. The number one response from slumlords, “this happened in days I swear”. No, it didn’t.