Boston Babies
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Rental discrimination for housing with kids/ a baby / a baby on the way?
If you have ever rented a home or apartment in the Boston area, have you ever suspected you 'lost' a place when the other party found out your family status?
Some side-note links:
https://www.massfairhousing.org/pdf/MFHC-FamiliesWithChildren.pdf
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Re: Rental discrimination for housing with kids/ a baby / a baby on the way?
I'll just note that I feel I'm having a problem with this as I'm actively searching while 6 months pregnant. The law seems to be a bit of a catch 22 for landlords so I'm not sure I can blame them for their lame excuses when they find out...
But - the problem is - I'm going to guess some quite large % of apartments in the Boston area have or might have lead paint in them. If the place has a clean, fresh paint job with no chipping and the windows are newer, vinyl or varnish-only, I don't care! I'd like to be the judge of whether or not the place meets my standards. Personally, I don't want to live in a character-less apartment complex with miniscule windows just to meet this requirement. There are so many fantastic and well-kept older places in Boston!
I wish I could appease a potential landlord by saying I'm willing to sign a waiver, confirming that I'm aware of the situation and take personal responsibility. Problem is, it seems like that doesn't hold legal water and the landlord still has to worry that one day I'll demand that the place be deleaded at a huge cost to them.
I'm about ready to pull out my hair with all these great places suddenly having something pop up and become unavailable once I disclose my situation. You can never tell what the REAL reason is... (I'd like to think we're the 'ideal' tenant in every other way.)
Anyway, curious of your thoughts and experiences in this regard.
(Thanks!)
Even if you waive out of the lead paint requirement, if your baby tests positive for lead at his/her 9 month apointment, DPH will be all.over. your house/apartment.
The lead laws are not there to be waived. The enforcement of these laws is stringent, and there are teeth to this law-which is why landlords are concerned. Also, lead poisoning is very dangerous for a small child.
There was a globe article a year or so ago about a Wellesley family whose child ingested a necklace charm that was made in china, and subsequently developed lead poisoning. The DPH investigation was triggered by the positive lead blood test on the child. The house (mansion, really) in Wellesley showed traces of lead around one window which was high up in the foyer and inaccessible to the child.
The family was forced out of it's house and had to do extensive repair work. You cannot waive around these laws, and the owner of a house is destroyed by the lead repairs-they are wayyyyyyy pricey.
So I can hardly blame the landlord for being wary of the lead regulations.
Thanks so much for your comments on this.
Just to vent a bit - this whole experience has been so frustrating! It's such a Catch 22 and I really can see if from both sides. I'm thinking this could be MUCH better handled if the law required landlords to find out if their place has lead paint or not - eliminate the grey area and make it black and white. (It only costs ~$300 to have a place tested.)
Secondly, landlords should be strongly encouraged to include this info. in any apartment listings (Craig's List etc.). Either they have lead paint and aren't legal for kids under 6, or they don't and they're safe/legal. Right now - it's actually illegal to indicate in an ad the presence or potential presence of lead paint on this site since it's also illegal to discriminate against pregnant women or families with kids under the age of 6 - even if there IS lead paint. So strange.
Can't we just be upfront? Make it more black and white? It's been terrible getting the run-around and being denied due to 'unknown presence of lead paint'. If the apartment was built after 1978, it shouldn't have lead paint either (since it was outlawed in 1978). Hard to tell from pictures when the building was built. Or if the 'major renovation' or 'all-modern' apartment means that it now meets legal lead-free standards. If it's grey area, I seem to be a no-go tenant. They're not testing and they won't rent to me because the possibility remains. Not fair.
Anyway... off my soapbox
I'm sure you've come across this info already, but if the landlord lives in the building and only has one rental unit (i.e. a two family home), s/he is legally allowed to discriminate against a potential tenant with children under 6.
There is a MA lead inspection database. You can look up the address of a potential rental to see if it's ever been inspected, had violations. When we were looking, if the exact address wasn't listed on Craigslist, we'd use Googlemaps streetview to find the place base on pictures in the ad. Then we'd check the address in the database. That way we didn't waste time looking at places that weren't deleaded.
It's frustrating, but there are places out there. Good luck with your search!
Here's the link to the database:
https://webapps.ehs.state.ma.us/Leadsafehomes/default.aspx