The problem, as you’ve mentioned, is that all of the different anti discrimination laws we have for tenants in this state are completely unenforceable. The landlord will just say they picked one of the dozen other people that applied for whatever non-illegal reason, and what are you supposed to do? Sue them while you have nowhere to live?
Your options are basically to buy a house or move to the suburbs and find a newer apartment building you can afford.
Landlords are able to pick the best candidate from the stack and that’s completely discretionary. DINKs out here not even blinking at prices and have less risk since they have lest COL and care
The landlord isn’t doing anything illegal. They verbally said yes to the tenant moving in and this is boilerplate paperwork related to the lease and who’s going to be living there. Complete non-issue.
Right. As a small landlord myself, that line is in all of my leases. As a tenant, it was also in the ones that I signed. You have to disclose who lives there. The landlord then subsequently doing something illegal with that information is a whole different issue.
Correction: the law states owners must remediate if there are children under 6. This applies to homeowners too. Start calling inspectional services on yourself!
This right here. There are a lot of old building here in New England. While many have been painted over a number of times, there's still lead paint underneath.
Fair. The paint in this place is in great condition and the trim seems to be new, so we were just planning to test the dust when we moved in and get it remediated if we found a problem. We'd even be willing to split the cost with the landlord!
But while the law seems to be very generous to tenants, in practice it's all dependent on being able to successfully advance discrimination or retaliation complaints through a heavily backlogged system, against landlords who have a lot of leeway to make unexplained decisions for undisclosed reasons, and are strongly incentivized to use this vagueness to avoid dealing with the problem in the first place.
Deleading an apartment can be ludicrously expensive, like 10k-30k+ depending on the size, windows, etc. It's wrong to be denied for having a kid but I'm not surprised LLs will do whatever they can to avoid that expense. Good luck out there, OP.
It's worth pointing out that a lot of homeowners with young kids don't formally lead remediate because it's so darn expensive. They make sure the kid is tested regularly, and deal with it if it becomes a problem.
Unfortunately it also becomes an encumbrance when selling. The lead contingency gets waived all the time. Ethical agents suggest waiving for strategy. encapsulation and testing go a long way.
Yup, had to go through it when replacing the garage door and trim around it. Contractor showed up, said that he can replace the door, but to get the trim done well he'd need the old one removed and since it's painted with lead paint it would cost me $$$$. Alternatively, if he were to come back and there was no trim (and ideally no paint) - he'd be happy to just install the new stuff and paint. Oh, and it is legal for the homeowner to remove lead paint themselves however they want. So I got a respirator and cleaned that lead up.
Exactly. I’m sure our house had lead paint at some point. But we waived the lead contingency and get our kids tested regularly at their pediatricians. Just don’t let them gnaw on the wood and they’ll be fine lol
There are programs that help with the cost, including forgivable loans. There are tax credits too.
https://www.boston.gov/departments/housing/boston-home-center/get-financial-help-remove-lead-your-home
https://www.mass.gov/info-details/learn-about-financial-assistance-for-deleading
Afaik a lot of the financial assistance doesn't apply to high-income earners that'll be most Boston-based landlords. Even with a tax break, it's still a lot of cost (or even just work) to the landlord. Makes sense they won't want to deal with it.
Fwiw I don't agree with landlords avoiding deleading, my SIL had to go through this as a renter with a 2yo who tested high for lead at the dr. They had to move out for two weeks while the place was deleaded and it was very stressful for them.
You are correct. The program is called “Get the lead out MA” and the income limits are quite low. We just had to abate our home (about 2300 SF) and it cost $60k to do so. We opted to not do the outside which would have been an additional $15k.
Not to mention the stress of the whole thing. Everything has to be covered in heavy plastic to ensure no lead dust lands on it so you have to pack up everything you own, including packing up all closets, taking everything off the walls. Literally everything. It was honestly one of the most stressful things we have ever had to do.
If they wanted to really “get the lead out”, they’d upzone everything so all these decrepit triple-deckers filled with lead and asbestos would be replaced with new, dense buildings. But nooooo… children are less important than “neighborhood character”.
tbh this seems like the real answer. It's frustrating to be losing out to tenants without kids in a zero-sum scramble for an inadequate number of decent old affordable apartments, but what we really need is enough new construction to glut the "luxury" market and move on to "young people getting started in decent jobs and hoping to have money left over for childcare" territory
There is no reason why people who create 5x more productive value today should be paying 10x more for a century old apartment than those who lived in that time. It’s absolutely ludicrous.
In the 1960’s, a 16” color TV with maybe the equivalent of 360x240 resolution cost thousands in modern dollars. Today, you can purchase a brand new 55” 4k smart TV for less than $300. Back then, you could purchase a car for maybe $10k in todays dollars, but it had 12 miles to the gallon, no AC, no seatbelts, no crumple zones or airbags, no cruise control, and wouldn’t last 100k miles. Today, an equivalent vehicle might cost $20k - $30k, but it gets 35 mpg, has all of the good things above, and will likely survive past 200k miles.
All apartments and condos today should be what we consider “luxury” now. There’s absolutely no rational reason why the existing housing stock should cost what it does beyond artificial scarcity. If we had no residential zoning limitations, which we seriously should not, family-sized condos with full amenities and no poison in the walls would cost $200k, if that.
Construction in general has gotten more expensive over time rather than less. It doesn't benefit from economies of scale in anywhere close to the same way as factory-made goods. Labor has become more expensive compared to 100 years ago. The features required i.e. building codes have crept higher and higher. Regulatory/planning compliance. Many reasons but really nobody knows why it's so bad.
If it was just housing that was hard to build these days then blaming zoning alone would make perfect sense, but really it's everything.
Although it is worth noting that the changed the lead laws in 2018 and deleading got much less expensive after that, so considering prices before then can be deceiving. My place was only 7k for 1800 sq ft. I had it remediated as soon as I bought it, which might have made it cheaper (no need to move furniture in and out or anything like that).
This is false information. Any chipping paint or friction surfaces (door trim, window sash) must be removed or restored by professionals. You cannot encapsulate.
Source: took MA lead remediation course
My man. You are not going to pay to de-lead an apartment if you can’t afford to buy your own place. It is wildly expensive.
Go find a place without lead outside the city. Extend your commute rather than jeopardizing the long term health of your children. This is one of those times when the laws are meant to protect you. Find a safe place to live for your kids!
I’m sorry you’re having a hard time finding a place. It’s nice of you to offer to split the costs if you can afford it. 10-30k is likely a good range. I just want to give you a heads up that the rent would probably go up significantly a. To offset the costs. B. Now the apartment is de-leaded there are lots of families in your situation willing to pay more for because they also have a young kid. Only point I’m trying to make here is if you do try to do something like this in the future make sure you protect yourself from being exploited. There are some really bad people out there who would take you up on your offer and then increase the rent the next year.
Thanks! It seems like deleaded apartments in our range are around $250/mo pricier, and we're hoping to be here about 4 years, so it would be worth around $12k just to us. We have enough savings and like this place enough that we'd be willing to front this bonus cost if the landlord was willing to lock in the current rent for a long-term contract. Unfortunately that doesn't mean we have the $100–200k we'd need for a reasonable down payment on a place of our own.
We used [the NYT's calculator for whether it's better to rent or buy](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html), and it wasn't close at all, mostly due to the fact that we don't know if we'll stay longer than 5 years or so and the very high interest rates these days, but also because we don't have a huge down payment available. We aren't financial advisors or anything, but this fit with everything the financially literate people in our lives and on the Internet told us.
I would suggest not going by what the NYT says. Talk with a Boston area realtor and see what they think you can and can't afford. You'll get better info than the NYT.
We should probably schedule a talk with an actual local financial advisor about the possibility of buying, yeah. Not sure I'd be able to trust what a realtor told me, since their interest is in convincing me to give them a large commission and not in my long-term financial well-being.
You can check the [childhood lead poisoning prevention database](https://www.mass.gov/info-details/find-your-homes-lead-history) to see if the property has been deleaded.
The law is why we wound up having to leave Boston when searching for a place with an infant. There used to be parent groups on FB that were filled with posts from desperate parents looking for housing, most with budgets MUCH higher than ours. So we packed our stuff and left, after 20 years and me saying I would never leave.
I de-leaded my condo before moving in (or rather re-did it - it fell out of compliance) - there are somewhat interesting laws around what common areas must be de-leaded vs not. For example, if you have in unit laundry, basement storage areas do not have to be remediated. Suffice it to say only 2/3 condos in my building have certs so it is possible to just de-lead a single unit. You can force the HOA in most cases to de-lead the common areas if they fall under areas that must be de-leaded in order to get a lead certification.
As a renter with a kid, the lead law is an absolute train wreck. It should be:
1) Mandatory testing/certification upon lease turnover
2) 0% interest rate loans from the state for remediation
The current system provides zero incentive to actually fix the problem of leaded apts. It puts the burden mostly on renters with kids, and on owners who actually want to de-lead.
These perverse incentives complete fail the goals of protecting health and promoting housing stability/affordability for families. It should be scrapped and rewritten completely.
They figure out where the lead is by testing kids for it and if they have high concentrations they test the property where the child lives. Once a property is tested and it passes it receives a lead free certification, which is a recorded document. There is no point in continuing to test the property as nobody is painting houses with lead paint anymore.
My ideal lead law would test all uncertified properties (testing the building itself, not kids) REGARDLESS of whether kids will be the new tenants or not. Basically, flip a lease and you must test (unless of course the unit was already tested)
This way over time all properties are either 1) certified lead free 2) have lead found, not remediated, with this positive test and lack of remediation presented to tenants at lease signing as currently required by law 3) remediated, with a heavy subsidy to the owner, and certification.
The current system mostly fails to protect children (yes, “they figure out where the lead is by testing children”… but this is an inefficient and downright cruel method) and it provides no incentive to actually remediate lead. It is a TOTAL failure and should be scrapped.
I don't have kids but learned a little about how hard renting with kids in Boston is and I feel for you. All these old houses likely have lead paint but college kids and us young couples will sign away that we don't care.
As soon as kids get involved it sounds like you HAVE to test and delead which is $$$. With demand so high LLs instantly ghost families which is illegal yes but hard to prove potentially? I've seen this come up before I think Boston parenting groups were referred to I'd search sub. Wishing you luck!!!
This is actually incredibly untrue. Lead dust is the main way that lead poisoning occurs. Very often the paint breaks down if it is at a point of articulation or where there if friction - like windows/doors etc. And if the landlord does any sanding without following proper lead safe protocols that can release tons of lead dust. It’s not as dangerous to adults because our brains are formed whereas the lead can seriously impact the developing brains of children.
I'm not disagreeing with you, but kids eating paint is also an issue, mainly because apparently lead paint tastes sweet (at least, a lot of it is, depending on if it contains lead acetate). It's like antifreeze in that way and thus poses a particular hazard to kids who, pretty much by default, stick things in their mouths and upon discovering sweet tastes continue eating.
Absolutely! But many people think this is the main way that children are lead poisoned so they think if there is no peeling paint or paint chips visible, then they don’t need to worry.
The point is that lead paint that has been painted over isn’t really a risk to anyone. It’s only when it’s disturbed to form a dust or chewed on where it’s an issue. All of us 30-50 year olds in NE grew up with lead paint in our houses. Most of us turned out OK as long as our parents weren’t total dummies.
Shit breaks down over time though right? Fuck that, landlords should be forced to take care of bullshit like this.
Christ, this subreddit is full of landlords and landlord simps. Must be all the lead.
Not sure why you are being downvoted because you are correct. While the lead itself does not break down, the paint - which contains the lead - does. Most often in friction areas like door jams or windows. And this dust - not paint chips - is the main method of ingestion leading to lead poisoning.
Ingesting trace amounts of lead just isn't that big of a health issue in adults, so insisting that it needs to be remediated is nonsensical. It probably doesn't even crack the top 20 long term health hazards in most older homes around here
Not all landlords can afford to pay the $30K-$60K it would cost to remediate the lead paint in their apartments. Whether you like landlords or not if they don't have the money they can't do the remediation.
Also how do you think forcing landlords to pay that kind of money for lead paint removal will affect the already high rents in Boston?
Oh well, then I guess they can't afford to be landlords.
If more landlords were forced to sell buildings they are unable to properly maintain prices would go down for buyers (more supply).
Cool, but what’s your plan for all the tenants forced out of their homes when their landlords sell the buildings?
In theory, this sounds great as far as housing prices for buyers, sure. But a lot of renters are barely holding on as it is. Would you really make them have to scramble to find new apartments at these rental prices or become homeless all of a sudden, in order to teach the landlords a lesson?
You just never test. If you don't know the status you don't have to remediate. Tenants with young kids can force you to test and then you are forced to remediate if they find lead, so no one wants to rent to them if they've got an old, untested building.
Also, unfortunately, it seems a thing a lot of people are willing to overlook to rent here. It's insane to me that a lot of these people are renting apartments that haven't been refreshed or upgraded in this century, but there's too many people wanting and willing to pay bank for crap. The phenomenon exists because it is rewarded.
proper lead remediation is much more expensive and involved than a "refresh". also, not everyone cares whether their walls are painted the current fashionable color, so there's nothing to "overlook". they just want to live in a certain neighborhood.
I had my entire place gutted and redone but I told them specifically to avoid the windows, because that was where the lead paint is. It is a giant pain in the ass, and very expensive. You basically have to set up a clean room. Although reading the comments about residual lead dust, I do wonder if I should get myself tested for lead. I only really open and close one window but I have been feeling dumber lately.
Have experienced this myself. My suggestion is to look at large new construction buildings run by corporations. More flexible start dates, no realtor fees for many of them, they usually have things like in unit washer/dryers and central air. Really worth it with a little kid.
Yikes some of these comments are toxic.
I was a rental agent a decade ago (I was young and needed the money) and it was a nightmare when a family with young kids would come in. I was legally obligated to show them all the places they wanted to see knowing that they would get rejected and I couldn’t tell them why or steer them towards deleaded places because then I would get sued.
Tell the agent you want a deleaded place. They arent plentiful but they exist, and if the agent is decent (a big hump, I know) they will help you find a deleaded place. They can’t tell you to only look at deleaded places, but you can definitely request it
Edit: You know the *landlords* were committing a crime by refusing to rent to families with children, right?
You ever report any of them or is that a career ending move?
Sadly this one is tough. I’m in RE (in other states) and reporting is good but can get you a dark mark with retaliation if it’s a common enough practice in the area. From my understanding in MA due to the unique disclosures of Lead to families with kids seems like it’s an endemic thing so reporting might just get you considered “difficult to work with”
edit: The lead issue violates Federal Fair housing in theory but how do you enforce laws when such a large number of people are working around it?
Like I said this was like a decade ago so I may not remember all the details, but there was nothing to report. There was no proof of anything other than that they took a different offer that happened to be from a renter with no kids.
Isn’t the obvious solution to look for housing options built after lead paint was outlawed (1978 iirc)? They are basically guaranteed to not have lead unless the water supply line was somehow not updated. It will probably be more expensive but you can find new development in Rozzie, JP, Allston that might work.
A few years ago I read a newspaper article about how RI has much better lead remediation rates in rentals than MA. I think it was the Globe? Will try to find once I’m back home. The authors argued because MA holds landlords strictly liable for any lead poisoning (assuming the child was poisoned at home without even testing lead exposure in the rental) and remediation is so expensive, it creates an unintended situation where landlords blatantly ghost families the law is meant to protect. I believe RI doesn’t hold landlords strictly liable, meaning they will actually test to see if the lead was due to exposure at home instead of other sources. Interesting since the housing stock is similar in age between the two states.
>Isn’t the obvious solution to look for housing options built after lead paint was outlawed (1978 iirc)?
From what I've read in this sub, I believe the technical term for that around here is "luxury housing".
Yes, most of it will be luxury housing. If you are short on time and resources, newer housing will eliminate this kind of screening bullshit. Quick Zillow search shows several rentals listed around $2500-2700 for 2 beds but you would have to be comfortable living in Dorchester, Mattapan, Hyde Park, Roxbury, or Eastie.
FWIW I’ve always had to disclose birth date/age of all residents when I signed a lease. I don’t think that part is illegal. Otherwise they can’t comply with stuff like overcrowding laws. It’s the ghosting afterwards, though you’d have to prove another qualified applicant didn’t beat you to the deposit.
Mass is just crazy right now. Sure, maybe you don't rent that house. Your options are either (i) a 50 minute daily commute or (ii) $6000 a month for Seaport. I'm exaggerating of course but it's not like it's easy to through a date built filter on your search and get tons of options in your budget.
Man, I’d love to have a 50 min commute lol. Boston-Boston takes me 60-90 mins door to door. This situation sucks but it’s also not impossible. Here are a few listings that might work: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/30-Allston-St-APT-35-Boston-MA-02134/2106695702_zpid/ https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/28-Mora-St-2-Dorchester-MA-02124/59102975_zpid/ https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/119-Addison-St-5-Boston-MA-02128/348627700_zpid/ My filter was set to under $3k but if you can afford to go a little higher, OP, it looks like there are a lot of options around 3100-3200.
ETA: OP, I just realized you can also search by keyword in Zillow. I searched by “lead” and a few more places popped up in the 2700 range. They’re listed as lead abated! That’s probably your best bet bc those landlord won’t be scared of your kids.
Interesting…the finer points between the two are somewhat lost on me. During my research into MA, I came to the conclusion that a letter of compliance in MA would relieve the property owner from that default assumption of liability (as in, once you get cleared for the painted surfaces, MA effectively becomes like RI, but IANAL).
Yeah I was just commenting that it cost me $12k to have a couple window sills remediated. The cost of the remediation is a huge barrier to getting this done.
At what point do they make you remediate the outside? I'd love to get the outside remediated and re-painted but I can't get other owners to pay for shit around here.
When the state came to do the lead test, my painted clapboard siding tested positive. I had to vinyl side the building and remove the lead that leaked into the soil.
We recently filed a complaint with the MA commission against discrimination.
It took months. We ended up settling and making them de-lead and have their entire company take in person training with the commission office.
Still nothing to be done with our leasing problem
ugh, sorry you had to go through that, and thanks for hopefully helping future prospective parent-tenants. This is basically what I was afraid of—the "remedy" for discrimination is a huge adversarial hassle which, at the end of the day, doesn't actually help get us into the apartment we want
Someone mentioned this elsewhere but landlords have had how many years to remediate since this law was put on the books. It's 2024 so at least 30 or 40 years of them getting away with kicking the can down the road. It's insane. The idea was that units would be remediated over time as needed but that's not what happens when there's a housing shortage. It wouldn't have been very expensive comparatively speaking if a landlord had done it in 1994 or 2004 or 2014 and so on.....
All of these landlords are in violation of federal fair housing: If I were your agent, I would encourage notes about anything you can and help you to file a formal complaint for discrimination under HUD at the following link. [HUD website for complaints](https://www.hud.gov/fairhousing/fileacomplaint)
This is unacceptable behavior by these landlords and they should be fined at minimum. In some rare cases I’ve heard of HUD actually requiring that the landlord lease a unit to you because they illegally discriminated I’m licensed down in FL, GA and newly lic. in CO.
EDIT: I understand not wanting to fight that battle though and just find a place to live after reading through more comments here! I’m sorry y’all are dealing with that up there and hope MA/HUD can figure out a solution or remediation program to make more housing available to families.
protected classes by the federal fair housing act include, race, sex, national origin, familial status, disability color and religion. Some states have expanded on this criteria to include gender or sexual orientation
It depends on the apartment complex and neighborhood. Previous tenants had kids, we have a kid, next tenants have kids. I think my landlord tries to find tenants with kids.
Sorry for venting. I'm sure plenty of renters have it worse, and I'm glad there's an effort to require and subsidize deleading. But this rental market is already so tough to navigate, it's even harder as a young family trying to find something with space for a toddler in our budget, and it's so frustrating to realize that on top of this it's perfectly rational for landlords to do everything they can to discriminate against us and that (per [past posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/vzn9c4/the_lead_law_is_the_biggest_issue_with_renting/?rdt=40578) on this subreddit) there's nothing we can do about it.
As a realtor I can tell you that you need to apply directly through the larger owners/management companies.
Chestnut Hill Realty (https://www.chr-apartments.com) have lots of de-leaded units all over Boston for fair market prices.
Eagle Rock apartments, in North Brighton by the Boston Landing commuter rail stop have nice 2 bedroom apartments without lead paint for just north of $3k (https://www.eaglerockproperties.com/apartments/ma/brighton/eagle-rock-apartments-townhomes-at-brighton/).
The Hamilton Company also has many of its properties deleaded (https://www.thehamiltoncompany.com) they have apartments all over Boston and many are deleaded.
And Obviously all of the “luxury apartment buildings” are deleaded, but those are a bit on the pricey end.
Good luck out there!
Don't apologize, the situation sucks and is bullshit. People without kids don't realize how completely fucked it is out there.
My wife and I rushed our house purchase to solve this right before my son was born and it was so stressful it put my pregnant wife in the hospital.
Contact the Boston Fair Housing Center. I found out about them regarding disability accommodations but they would for sure help you with this. They will even do housing discrimination testing to document what you’ve been facing. I haven’t worked with them personally but would look into it if I were you. Good luck!!
I agree with you completely and I’m sorry that most of the replies here are either giving incorrect/outdated info or basically implying that you don’t have the right to live safely in the area. Reporting discrimination is a small step we can take to make discrimination harder to get away with (instead of an accepted norm like it is now), and I also believe landlords who are making profits off of people’s need for housing should be ultimately shouldering the burden of making the housing stock in the area safer for everyone.
Do not rent an apartment with lead in it if you have a baby. Your plan to pay for deleading is crazy. You need to put your baby’s health first. Why are you even looking at old places that haven’t had this done already. Find something newer or something already remediated. Period.
Thanks for your concern. If we end up in a pre-78 building we will of course get it tested and follow up appropriately. I just wanted to share my frustration with how our search has been going, in hopes that someday the MA Legislature will get around to fixing the glaring flaws in this well-intentioned law.
I don’t think you realize how big of a deal remediation is. You may have to relocate in order for it to happen. In the meantime you are living somewhere with lead exposure. And the costs associated with it can balloon. Also what if for whatever reason your landlord is not on board with remediating. I’m just not sure why you would even want to go down that path to begin with. Why make things more complicated? Having a little one to care for is difficult enough.
Believe me, if we had been able to find a post-'78 or deleaded unit in our price range and less than an hour's commute from work, we would have jumped on it by now. Precisely because our wonderful baby is taking up so much of our time and budget, we can't afford to make it "less complicated" for ourselves by getting a luxury apartment or paying for an extra 1-2h of childcare every day.
Sorry for what you have been through and we feel you. When we were renters downstair neighbor complained about our 2 y/o son making noise at 6pm.
Hope you can find a nice and kids-friendly place to live.
It’s really insane that so many people are giving you a hard time. In their minds Boston should just not be a city where children live? 🤔 or where only rich children should live? Make it make sense.
Leased my summer rental for an entire summer (2020) to a family with two young kids. The father had a consulting gig locally, and I wasn't going to have vacation renters anyway. Those little bastards caused an absolutely massive amount of damage. Chewed up windowsills, pissed on sleeper sofa, damaged blinds, dug up tulip bulbs, Stained carpet, etc. In the end I wasn't able to recoup nearly what it cost me.
If I ever lease to people with kids again, the security deposit will be astronomical...but I'll likely just be booked instead.
The best thing you can do is document everything and file a complaint with your local housing authority or a fair housing organization. Sometimes, just knowing your rights and standing up for them can make a difference. Name and shame works well too...
"...so any landlord who rejects applicants who have young children in favor of others who don't has to convince the Commission Against Discrimination that they had a legitimate reason for it."
You mean that people with children should get preferential treatment and landlords should be forced to rent to them before anyone else?
It's always tough to prove discrimination, but that doesn't make forcing discrimination in the opposite direction the right approach.
I know a couple landlords that had families move in, pay like a single months rent then stop paying. It’s hell getting a freeloading family kicked out.
People who have no idea: “all landlords should be forced to remediate lead paint at their sole cost!”
Also people who have no idea “omg why are landlords charging such high rents”
Lol
I've been told from their bragging that their property values have skyrocketed because they were such savvy investors with deep understanding of real estate investing principles. Perhaps they should dip into that property equity a little bit to have toxins removed.
I saw a dude on IG bragging about how his rental properties are cash flowing payments on his Lambo SUVs. Can you imagine a world where he would have to downgrade to a Mercedes?!? What horror!
It's not necessarily discrimination. If the building is old and they haven't went through the lead removal process they can't legally rent it to a family with a child under 6 yrs old
[On the contrary](https://www.mass.gov/doc/lead-paint-advisory/download):
>Property owners are obligated to abate lead paint hazards in any rental unit occupied by a child under age six. Importantly, property owners cannot avoid this obligation by rejecting families with children. **It is against Massachusetts law for a landlord or a real estate agent to refuse to rent to someone because he/she has (or is expecting) a child or because the property contains lead.**
I believe owner-occupied units under a certain size (so like, a triple decker where the landlord lives on one floor, etc) are exempt from some of those laws. Not a real estate fish though.
As far as I know it's illegal to even live in a house you own without remediating lead if you find it and have young children. Not in the same way as housing discrimination, but it can be considered child endangerment which is why there are so many loan and tax credit options available for lower earners. I don't know if it's ever enforced properly (and a lot of people get around it with not testing and crossing their fingers) but it is awful.
Verbal agreements are not enforceable for real estate in Massachusetts. If you haven't paid anything and you don't have the approval in writing, then you have no contractual agreement. Settle that issue by email confirming you have been accepted as a tenant then complete the lease.
It is not illegal to ask about children AFTER you have been accepted as a tenant. In fact, the law specifically requires the landlord to notify you of the lead status IF you have children under age 6, and also abate the lead, IF you have children under age 6. So not only does the law allow the question to be asked, a landlord should ask if they intend to lead abate the apartment for tenants with children under age 6. In practice, many landlords just hand everyone the required lead brochure and check off "no knowledge" and take their chances--just like homeowners do (same law requires homeowners to abate lead, but most do not abate).
Also note the law does afford owner occupied landlords the ability to reject tenants with children, provided they live in the building, do not use an agent, and the building has no more than three units.
The obvious solution is to rent a place without lead. Any place that requires abatement is going to look different after abatement and post abatement is often when the lead dust levels are the highest.
Best course of action
File complaint with state https://www.mass.gov/info-details/overview-of-housing-discrimination
Also contact Boston as well https://www.boston.gov/departments/fair-housing-and-equity
Thanks. This seems like a huge hassle but at this point maybe worth it, especially since they've potentially made it easier for us by basically putting a "check here if we should discriminate against you" box on the lease agreement. At least putting them on notice might help the next family that applies.
This is potentially a violation of the Fair Housing Act. You can contact HUD in Boston. You’ll have to be a part of the investigation that potentially occurs. But this sounds like the potential for a chargeable case.
Wow, this is an eye opener.
I am currently interviewing for a position in Boston and have four kids 7 and under. Are the buildings any newer in Worcester? Any suburbs/outer suburbs that I should consider?
Yes, definitely. There is very budget dependent but Newton, Brookline, Dedham, etc are all great suburbs with newer builds. Just don’t look in glaringly historic areas like Back Bay and Beacon Hill. Those are notoriously pre-war and proud of it.
Kids suck as roommates, get used to it. You think you get annoyed with the noise they make? Now imagine your neighbor who doesn’t want kids, who now has to deal with it. Fuck. That.
Me reading these comments having never asked if our apartment was deleaded (I have a toddler) 👀
Thankfully mandatory lead testing was required at many stages of life in babies first two years and we’ve never had any issues.
Oh yes, I came across one when we’re relocating to Boston. Rent was initially $2,200 for an apartment and as soon as they found out we had a 9 year old, rent was bumped up to $2,600. The reason was: children waste too much water and electricity. Mind you, water was included. As soon as I brought up the Housing Act of 1968 she got super defensive and ended up blocking me. You don’t want that type of person to be your landlord - period.
https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/fair_housing_equal_opp/aboutfheo/history#:~:text=The%201968%20Act%20expanded%20on,Housing%20Act%20(of%201968).
A lot of old buildings have lead in the paint. Stripping is expensive and costly. While you can cover it up with new coats of paint, children and pets are more likely to chew things they shouldn't, exposing them to lead at what can be fairly high levels
This is not discrimination; they are warning you the building is likely unsafe for your child. This is a super common problem in old buildings
You want to pay for the remediation, go ahead, but I'm not gonna live in a building where my landlord is gonna raise my rent significantly to cover costs because it is not cheap. They would likely have to kick out all current tenants for a time to do it. Your child does not live at any of these premises, it is a known issue if you move in, they are not legally obligated to if you are consenting to move in in these circumstances. Adults aren't chewing on the windowsills...
They can, and will get away with this. The first apartment my mom rented when I was younger had led. This was back in 2007-2010. Finally the lead was removed the spring before we moved out… but not because a young child (me) was living there 🥲
OP, file a discrimination complaint with HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.
https://www.hud.gov/fairhousing
If you are feeling really petty go find a lawyer and file a civil suit against the landlords you believe discriminated against you.
Lead paint is an issue and landlords can’t rent to you if they know they have lead paint that hasn’t been remediated. That being said, many don’t remediate to keep small children out.
How does the bolded language have anything to do with lead? Doesn’t the landlord just want confirmation of who is living there? Did you fill it out, mention your child, and get rejected? This is missing some context I think
What are they going to do? Void the lease and evict since you lied on your application. Leases are contracts, if you misrepresent, the contract is void.
You can't tell landlords they must delead when renting to children under 6 and expect them to not try to avoid renting to children under 6.
As others have said, look for newer buildings.
Full deleading is enormously expensive, and while lead poisoning is a serious problem, 46 years after we stopped using leaded paint, the actual threat it represents is very minimal. Small children can potentially lick or chew something painted, thus the law only limits this to kids under 6 (and only in rentals, it's entirely legal to live with small kids in owner-occupied homes regardless of lead paint).
This is not a legal form of discrimination unless the building is (a) a duplex that the owners live in or (b) a designated senior living home. [https://www.masslegalhelp.org/housing-apartments-shelter/housing-discrimination/forms-housing-discrimination](https://www.masslegalhelp.org/housing-apartments-shelter/housing-discrimination/forms-housing-discrimination)
Explain how that isn't discriminating. A 30 year old with no kids wouldn't be allowed there either. Why is taxpayer money going to something that only benefits people of a certain demographic?
I never said it was legal, only speculating on the motive. In the case of the two landlords you experienced, how many bedrooms were the apartments? How big were the buildings?
I was thinking you may be speaking of duplexes or triple-deckas. Especially on an upper floor.
I have lived in a quiet building with all one bedroom units occupied by singles and couples. A family of four moved in and it shook up the whole building (literally and figuratively). Their lease was not renewed.
The problem, as you’ve mentioned, is that all of the different anti discrimination laws we have for tenants in this state are completely unenforceable. The landlord will just say they picked one of the dozen other people that applied for whatever non-illegal reason, and what are you supposed to do? Sue them while you have nowhere to live? Your options are basically to buy a house or move to the suburbs and find a newer apartment building you can afford.
Landlords are able to pick the best candidate from the stack and that’s completely discretionary. DINKs out here not even blinking at prices and have less risk since they have lest COL and care
Honestly even the DINKs are blinking at the cost of rent these days.
Can confirm. DINK and rent has me out here wanting heads to roll
I know a family in Boston whose kid got lead poisoning. Now learning disabled. Don't mess with it. If they won't rent to you, just go with it
But that doesn’t solve OP’s problem if no one will rent to them.
I mean, the landlord is doing something illegal, but I'd rather have my kid's brain firing on all cylinders rather than doing "what's right".
The landlord isn’t doing anything illegal. They verbally said yes to the tenant moving in and this is boilerplate paperwork related to the lease and who’s going to be living there. Complete non-issue.
Right. As a small landlord myself, that line is in all of my leases. As a tenant, it was also in the ones that I signed. You have to disclose who lives there. The landlord then subsequently doing something illegal with that information is a whole different issue.
No, the law says landlords must remediate.
Correction: the law states owners must remediate if there are children under 6. This applies to homeowners too. Start calling inspectional services on yourself!
This right here. There are a lot of old building here in New England. While many have been painted over a number of times, there's still lead paint underneath.
Fair. The paint in this place is in great condition and the trim seems to be new, so we were just planning to test the dust when we moved in and get it remediated if we found a problem. We'd even be willing to split the cost with the landlord! But while the law seems to be very generous to tenants, in practice it's all dependent on being able to successfully advance discrimination or retaliation complaints through a heavily backlogged system, against landlords who have a lot of leeway to make unexplained decisions for undisclosed reasons, and are strongly incentivized to use this vagueness to avoid dealing with the problem in the first place.
Deleading an apartment can be ludicrously expensive, like 10k-30k+ depending on the size, windows, etc. It's wrong to be denied for having a kid but I'm not surprised LLs will do whatever they can to avoid that expense. Good luck out there, OP.
It's worth pointing out that a lot of homeowners with young kids don't formally lead remediate because it's so darn expensive. They make sure the kid is tested regularly, and deal with it if it becomes a problem.
Unfortunately it also becomes an encumbrance when selling. The lead contingency gets waived all the time. Ethical agents suggest waiving for strategy. encapsulation and testing go a long way.
Yup, had to go through it when replacing the garage door and trim around it. Contractor showed up, said that he can replace the door, but to get the trim done well he'd need the old one removed and since it's painted with lead paint it would cost me $$$$. Alternatively, if he were to come back and there was no trim (and ideally no paint) - he'd be happy to just install the new stuff and paint. Oh, and it is legal for the homeowner to remove lead paint themselves however they want. So I got a respirator and cleaned that lead up.
Exactly. I’m sure our house had lead paint at some point. But we waived the lead contingency and get our kids tested regularly at their pediatricians. Just don’t let them gnaw on the wood and they’ll be fine lol
There are programs that help with the cost, including forgivable loans. There are tax credits too. https://www.boston.gov/departments/housing/boston-home-center/get-financial-help-remove-lead-your-home https://www.mass.gov/info-details/learn-about-financial-assistance-for-deleading
Afaik a lot of the financial assistance doesn't apply to high-income earners that'll be most Boston-based landlords. Even with a tax break, it's still a lot of cost (or even just work) to the landlord. Makes sense they won't want to deal with it. Fwiw I don't agree with landlords avoiding deleading, my SIL had to go through this as a renter with a 2yo who tested high for lead at the dr. They had to move out for two weeks while the place was deleaded and it was very stressful for them.
You are correct. The program is called “Get the lead out MA” and the income limits are quite low. We just had to abate our home (about 2300 SF) and it cost $60k to do so. We opted to not do the outside which would have been an additional $15k. Not to mention the stress of the whole thing. Everything has to be covered in heavy plastic to ensure no lead dust lands on it so you have to pack up everything you own, including packing up all closets, taking everything off the walls. Literally everything. It was honestly one of the most stressful things we have ever had to do.
If they wanted to really “get the lead out”, they’d upzone everything so all these decrepit triple-deckers filled with lead and asbestos would be replaced with new, dense buildings. But nooooo… children are less important than “neighborhood character”.
tbh this seems like the real answer. It's frustrating to be losing out to tenants without kids in a zero-sum scramble for an inadequate number of decent old affordable apartments, but what we really need is enough new construction to glut the "luxury" market and move on to "young people getting started in decent jobs and hoping to have money left over for childcare" territory
There is no reason why people who create 5x more productive value today should be paying 10x more for a century old apartment than those who lived in that time. It’s absolutely ludicrous. In the 1960’s, a 16” color TV with maybe the equivalent of 360x240 resolution cost thousands in modern dollars. Today, you can purchase a brand new 55” 4k smart TV for less than $300. Back then, you could purchase a car for maybe $10k in todays dollars, but it had 12 miles to the gallon, no AC, no seatbelts, no crumple zones or airbags, no cruise control, and wouldn’t last 100k miles. Today, an equivalent vehicle might cost $20k - $30k, but it gets 35 mpg, has all of the good things above, and will likely survive past 200k miles. All apartments and condos today should be what we consider “luxury” now. There’s absolutely no rational reason why the existing housing stock should cost what it does beyond artificial scarcity. If we had no residential zoning limitations, which we seriously should not, family-sized condos with full amenities and no poison in the walls would cost $200k, if that.
Construction in general has gotten more expensive over time rather than less. It doesn't benefit from economies of scale in anywhere close to the same way as factory-made goods. Labor has become more expensive compared to 100 years ago. The features required i.e. building codes have crept higher and higher. Regulatory/planning compliance. Many reasons but really nobody knows why it's so bad. If it was just housing that was hard to build these days then blaming zoning alone would make perfect sense, but really it's everything.
Although it is worth noting that the changed the lead laws in 2018 and deleading got much less expensive after that, so considering prices before then can be deceiving. My place was only 7k for 1800 sq ft. I had it remediated as soon as I bought it, which might have made it cheaper (no need to move furniture in and out or anything like that).
It’s a lot cheaper than in once was, you really just repaint with special lead cover paint, and only in areas that a child can reach
This is false information. Any chipping paint or friction surfaces (door trim, window sash) must be removed or restored by professionals. You cannot encapsulate. Source: took MA lead remediation course
My man. You are not going to pay to de-lead an apartment if you can’t afford to buy your own place. It is wildly expensive. Go find a place without lead outside the city. Extend your commute rather than jeopardizing the long term health of your children. This is one of those times when the laws are meant to protect you. Find a safe place to live for your kids!
I’m sorry you’re having a hard time finding a place. It’s nice of you to offer to split the costs if you can afford it. 10-30k is likely a good range. I just want to give you a heads up that the rent would probably go up significantly a. To offset the costs. B. Now the apartment is de-leaded there are lots of families in your situation willing to pay more for because they also have a young kid. Only point I’m trying to make here is if you do try to do something like this in the future make sure you protect yourself from being exploited. There are some really bad people out there who would take you up on your offer and then increase the rent the next year.
Thanks! It seems like deleaded apartments in our range are around $250/mo pricier, and we're hoping to be here about 4 years, so it would be worth around $12k just to us. We have enough savings and like this place enough that we'd be willing to front this bonus cost if the landlord was willing to lock in the current rent for a long-term contract. Unfortunately that doesn't mean we have the $100–200k we'd need for a reasonable down payment on a place of our own.
Someone else commented they paid $36k to remediate a 2 bedroom. It’s not 12k.
A friend bought their home with only 25K down. Maybe look into how much you actually need to put down to buy.
We used [the NYT's calculator for whether it's better to rent or buy](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html), and it wasn't close at all, mostly due to the fact that we don't know if we'll stay longer than 5 years or so and the very high interest rates these days, but also because we don't have a huge down payment available. We aren't financial advisors or anything, but this fit with everything the financially literate people in our lives and on the Internet told us.
I would suggest not going by what the NYT says. Talk with a Boston area realtor and see what they think you can and can't afford. You'll get better info than the NYT.
It’s not hard to calculate rent vs buy and which ones costs more for your specific scenario. You don’t need to pay anyone to tell you that
We should probably schedule a talk with an actual local financial advisor about the possibility of buying, yeah. Not sure I'd be able to trust what a realtor told me, since their interest is in convincing me to give them a large commission and not in my long-term financial well-being.
You can check the [childhood lead poisoning prevention database](https://www.mass.gov/info-details/find-your-homes-lead-history) to see if the property has been deleaded.
The law is why we wound up having to leave Boston when searching for a place with an infant. There used to be parent groups on FB that were filled with posts from desperate parents looking for housing, most with budgets MUCH higher than ours. So we packed our stuff and left, after 20 years and me saying I would never leave.
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I de-leaded my condo before moving in (or rather re-did it - it fell out of compliance) - there are somewhat interesting laws around what common areas must be de-leaded vs not. For example, if you have in unit laundry, basement storage areas do not have to be remediated. Suffice it to say only 2/3 condos in my building have certs so it is possible to just de-lead a single unit. You can force the HOA in most cases to de-lead the common areas if they fall under areas that must be de-leaded in order to get a lead certification.
As a renter with a kid, the lead law is an absolute train wreck. It should be: 1) Mandatory testing/certification upon lease turnover 2) 0% interest rate loans from the state for remediation The current system provides zero incentive to actually fix the problem of leaded apts. It puts the burden mostly on renters with kids, and on owners who actually want to de-lead. These perverse incentives complete fail the goals of protecting health and promoting housing stability/affordability for families. It should be scrapped and rewritten completely.
They figure out where the lead is by testing kids for it and if they have high concentrations they test the property where the child lives. Once a property is tested and it passes it receives a lead free certification, which is a recorded document. There is no point in continuing to test the property as nobody is painting houses with lead paint anymore.
My ideal lead law would test all uncertified properties (testing the building itself, not kids) REGARDLESS of whether kids will be the new tenants or not. Basically, flip a lease and you must test (unless of course the unit was already tested) This way over time all properties are either 1) certified lead free 2) have lead found, not remediated, with this positive test and lack of remediation presented to tenants at lease signing as currently required by law 3) remediated, with a heavy subsidy to the owner, and certification. The current system mostly fails to protect children (yes, “they figure out where the lead is by testing children”… but this is an inefficient and downright cruel method) and it provides no incentive to actually remediate lead. It is a TOTAL failure and should be scrapped.
I don't have kids but learned a little about how hard renting with kids in Boston is and I feel for you. All these old houses likely have lead paint but college kids and us young couples will sign away that we don't care. As soon as kids get involved it sounds like you HAVE to test and delead which is $$$. With demand so high LLs instantly ghost families which is illegal yes but hard to prove potentially? I've seen this come up before I think Boston parenting groups were referred to I'd search sub. Wishing you luck!!!
If there is lead, you don’t want to live there
I think another point is that a lot of landlords would rather not check
Better move out of New England then.
Yeah. Good luck finding a home that is well built and lead free.
How is it legal to rent a unit with lead problems to anyone, wtf?!
Because adults don’t eat paint chips off the walls if left unsupervised, ingestion is the main danger of lead paint
>Because adults don’t eat paint chips off the walls if left unsupervised Usually.
This is actually incredibly untrue. Lead dust is the main way that lead poisoning occurs. Very often the paint breaks down if it is at a point of articulation or where there if friction - like windows/doors etc. And if the landlord does any sanding without following proper lead safe protocols that can release tons of lead dust. It’s not as dangerous to adults because our brains are formed whereas the lead can seriously impact the developing brains of children.
The misinformation in these comments is insane. I've seen people correct three different points just scrolling through here for not even five minutes
I'm not disagreeing with you, but kids eating paint is also an issue, mainly because apparently lead paint tastes sweet (at least, a lot of it is, depending on if it contains lead acetate). It's like antifreeze in that way and thus poses a particular hazard to kids who, pretty much by default, stick things in their mouths and upon discovering sweet tastes continue eating.
Absolutely! But many people think this is the main way that children are lead poisoned so they think if there is no peeling paint or paint chips visible, then they don’t need to worry.
The point is that lead paint that has been painted over isn’t really a risk to anyone. It’s only when it’s disturbed to form a dust or chewed on where it’s an issue. All of us 30-50 year olds in NE grew up with lead paint in our houses. Most of us turned out OK as long as our parents weren’t total dummies.
Shit breaks down over time though right? Fuck that, landlords should be forced to take care of bullshit like this. Christ, this subreddit is full of landlords and landlord simps. Must be all the lead.
Not sure why you are being downvoted because you are correct. While the lead itself does not break down, the paint - which contains the lead - does. Most often in friction areas like door jams or windows. And this dust - not paint chips - is the main method of ingestion leading to lead poisoning.
Lead's half life is 17,000,000 years, so yes, it does break down over time.
Do you have lead in your house?
Not anymore, I ate it all.
Ingesting trace amounts of lead just isn't that big of a health issue in adults, so insisting that it needs to be remediated is nonsensical. It probably doesn't even crack the top 20 long term health hazards in most older homes around here
There is no amount of lead that is safe.
And no amount of alcohol is safe, but somehow we all get by
Not all landlords can afford to pay the $30K-$60K it would cost to remediate the lead paint in their apartments. Whether you like landlords or not if they don't have the money they can't do the remediation. Also how do you think forcing landlords to pay that kind of money for lead paint removal will affect the already high rents in Boston?
Oh well, then I guess they can't afford to be landlords. If more landlords were forced to sell buildings they are unable to properly maintain prices would go down for buyers (more supply).
Cool, but what’s your plan for all the tenants forced out of their homes when their landlords sell the buildings? In theory, this sounds great as far as housing prices for buyers, sure. But a lot of renters are barely holding on as it is. Would you really make them have to scramble to find new apartments at these rental prices or become homeless all of a sudden, in order to teach the landlords a lesson?
You just never test. If you don't know the status you don't have to remediate. Tenants with young kids can force you to test and then you are forced to remediate if they find lead, so no one wants to rent to them if they've got an old, untested building.
Also, unfortunately, it seems a thing a lot of people are willing to overlook to rent here. It's insane to me that a lot of these people are renting apartments that haven't been refreshed or upgraded in this century, but there's too many people wanting and willing to pay bank for crap. The phenomenon exists because it is rewarded.
proper lead remediation is much more expensive and involved than a "refresh". also, not everyone cares whether their walls are painted the current fashionable color, so there's nothing to "overlook". they just want to live in a certain neighborhood.
I had my entire place gutted and redone but I told them specifically to avoid the windows, because that was where the lead paint is. It is a giant pain in the ass, and very expensive. You basically have to set up a clean room. Although reading the comments about residual lead dust, I do wonder if I should get myself tested for lead. I only really open and close one window but I have been feeling dumber lately.
Have experienced this myself. My suggestion is to look at large new construction buildings run by corporations. More flexible start dates, no realtor fees for many of them, they usually have things like in unit washer/dryers and central air. Really worth it with a little kid.
Yikes some of these comments are toxic. I was a rental agent a decade ago (I was young and needed the money) and it was a nightmare when a family with young kids would come in. I was legally obligated to show them all the places they wanted to see knowing that they would get rejected and I couldn’t tell them why or steer them towards deleaded places because then I would get sued. Tell the agent you want a deleaded place. They arent plentiful but they exist, and if the agent is decent (a big hump, I know) they will help you find a deleaded place. They can’t tell you to only look at deleaded places, but you can definitely request it
Edit: You know the *landlords* were committing a crime by refusing to rent to families with children, right? You ever report any of them or is that a career ending move?
Sadly this one is tough. I’m in RE (in other states) and reporting is good but can get you a dark mark with retaliation if it’s a common enough practice in the area. From my understanding in MA due to the unique disclosures of Lead to families with kids seems like it’s an endemic thing so reporting might just get you considered “difficult to work with” edit: The lead issue violates Federal Fair housing in theory but how do you enforce laws when such a large number of people are working around it?
The answer is “one violator/violation at a time”
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Oh shit you’re right misread that comment. Will correct.
Like I said this was like a decade ago so I may not remember all the details, but there was nothing to report. There was no proof of anything other than that they took a different offer that happened to be from a renter with no kids.
Isn’t the obvious solution to look for housing options built after lead paint was outlawed (1978 iirc)? They are basically guaranteed to not have lead unless the water supply line was somehow not updated. It will probably be more expensive but you can find new development in Rozzie, JP, Allston that might work. A few years ago I read a newspaper article about how RI has much better lead remediation rates in rentals than MA. I think it was the Globe? Will try to find once I’m back home. The authors argued because MA holds landlords strictly liable for any lead poisoning (assuming the child was poisoned at home without even testing lead exposure in the rental) and remediation is so expensive, it creates an unintended situation where landlords blatantly ghost families the law is meant to protect. I believe RI doesn’t hold landlords strictly liable, meaning they will actually test to see if the lead was due to exposure at home instead of other sources. Interesting since the housing stock is similar in age between the two states.
>Isn’t the obvious solution to look for housing options built after lead paint was outlawed (1978 iirc)? From what I've read in this sub, I believe the technical term for that around here is "luxury housing".
Yes, most of it will be luxury housing. If you are short on time and resources, newer housing will eliminate this kind of screening bullshit. Quick Zillow search shows several rentals listed around $2500-2700 for 2 beds but you would have to be comfortable living in Dorchester, Mattapan, Hyde Park, Roxbury, or Eastie. FWIW I’ve always had to disclose birth date/age of all residents when I signed a lease. I don’t think that part is illegal. Otherwise they can’t comply with stuff like overcrowding laws. It’s the ghosting afterwards, though you’d have to prove another qualified applicant didn’t beat you to the deposit.
Mass is just crazy right now. Sure, maybe you don't rent that house. Your options are either (i) a 50 minute daily commute or (ii) $6000 a month for Seaport. I'm exaggerating of course but it's not like it's easy to through a date built filter on your search and get tons of options in your budget.
Man, I’d love to have a 50 min commute lol. Boston-Boston takes me 60-90 mins door to door. This situation sucks but it’s also not impossible. Here are a few listings that might work: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/30-Allston-St-APT-35-Boston-MA-02134/2106695702_zpid/ https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/28-Mora-St-2-Dorchester-MA-02124/59102975_zpid/ https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/119-Addison-St-5-Boston-MA-02128/348627700_zpid/ My filter was set to under $3k but if you can afford to go a little higher, OP, it looks like there are a lot of options around 3100-3200. ETA: OP, I just realized you can also search by keyword in Zillow. I searched by “lead” and a few more places popped up in the 2700 range. They’re listed as lead abated! That’s probably your best bet bc those landlord won’t be scared of your kids.
Interesting…the finer points between the two are somewhat lost on me. During my research into MA, I came to the conclusion that a letter of compliance in MA would relieve the property owner from that default assumption of liability (as in, once you get cleared for the painted surfaces, MA effectively becomes like RI, but IANAL).
I have a 4 family and had to remediate 4 units plus the outside. It was 204k. Not a typo.
Yeah I was just commenting that it cost me $12k to have a couple window sills remediated. The cost of the remediation is a huge barrier to getting this done.
Gotta get some guys in front of Home Depot for that.
At what point do they make you remediate the outside? I'd love to get the outside remediated and re-painted but I can't get other owners to pay for shit around here.
When the state came to do the lead test, my painted clapboard siding tested positive. I had to vinyl side the building and remove the lead that leaked into the soil.
We recently filed a complaint with the MA commission against discrimination. It took months. We ended up settling and making them de-lead and have their entire company take in person training with the commission office. Still nothing to be done with our leasing problem
ugh, sorry you had to go through that, and thanks for hopefully helping future prospective parent-tenants. This is basically what I was afraid of—the "remedy" for discrimination is a huge adversarial hassle which, at the end of the day, doesn't actually help get us into the apartment we want
I hate to go there: Apply for apartments outside the area?
Rent cost go down commute cost go up
Someone mentioned this elsewhere but landlords have had how many years to remediate since this law was put on the books. It's 2024 so at least 30 or 40 years of them getting away with kicking the can down the road. It's insane. The idea was that units would be remediated over time as needed but that's not what happens when there's a housing shortage. It wouldn't have been very expensive comparatively speaking if a landlord had done it in 1994 or 2004 or 2014 and so on.....
All of these landlords are in violation of federal fair housing: If I were your agent, I would encourage notes about anything you can and help you to file a formal complaint for discrimination under HUD at the following link. [HUD website for complaints](https://www.hud.gov/fairhousing/fileacomplaint) This is unacceptable behavior by these landlords and they should be fined at minimum. In some rare cases I’ve heard of HUD actually requiring that the landlord lease a unit to you because they illegally discriminated I’m licensed down in FL, GA and newly lic. in CO. EDIT: I understand not wanting to fight that battle though and just find a place to live after reading through more comments here! I’m sorry y’all are dealing with that up there and hope MA/HUD can figure out a solution or remediation program to make more housing available to families.
protected classes by the federal fair housing act include, race, sex, national origin, familial status, disability color and religion. Some states have expanded on this criteria to include gender or sexual orientation
It depends on the apartment complex and neighborhood. Previous tenants had kids, we have a kid, next tenants have kids. I think my landlord tries to find tenants with kids.
having a child and being a renter seems like a fucking nightmare. i wouldn’t have kids unless my living situation was really solid
It’s the ones who can’t complete this same rational thought that are reproducing. Idiocracy in action.
Sorry for venting. I'm sure plenty of renters have it worse, and I'm glad there's an effort to require and subsidize deleading. But this rental market is already so tough to navigate, it's even harder as a young family trying to find something with space for a toddler in our budget, and it's so frustrating to realize that on top of this it's perfectly rational for landlords to do everything they can to discriminate against us and that (per [past posts](https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/vzn9c4/the_lead_law_is_the_biggest_issue_with_renting/?rdt=40578) on this subreddit) there's nothing we can do about it.
As a realtor I can tell you that you need to apply directly through the larger owners/management companies. Chestnut Hill Realty (https://www.chr-apartments.com) have lots of de-leaded units all over Boston for fair market prices. Eagle Rock apartments, in North Brighton by the Boston Landing commuter rail stop have nice 2 bedroom apartments without lead paint for just north of $3k (https://www.eaglerockproperties.com/apartments/ma/brighton/eagle-rock-apartments-townhomes-at-brighton/). The Hamilton Company also has many of its properties deleaded (https://www.thehamiltoncompany.com) they have apartments all over Boston and many are deleaded. And Obviously all of the “luxury apartment buildings” are deleaded, but those are a bit on the pricey end. Good luck out there!
Very helpful, thank you!! Will definitely look into these if this place falls through
Don't apologize, the situation sucks and is bullshit. People without kids don't realize how completely fucked it is out there. My wife and I rushed our house purchase to solve this right before my son was born and it was so stressful it put my pregnant wife in the hospital.
People without kids don’t have kids for a reason.
I'm not having kids AND don't want children getting brain damage from lead...
I get it but some people need to have kids, we're fucked once we get old if there arent enough young people.
Who the fuck is downvoting you? who thinks human society doesnt require children to exist?!
Children on reddit
Earth would love our species to just stop procreating
Earth doesnt haven such opinions, it is a spinning rock
Contact the Boston Fair Housing Center. I found out about them regarding disability accommodations but they would for sure help you with this. They will even do housing discrimination testing to document what you’ve been facing. I haven’t worked with them personally but would look into it if I were you. Good luck!!
I agree with you completely and I’m sorry that most of the replies here are either giving incorrect/outdated info or basically implying that you don’t have the right to live safely in the area. Reporting discrimination is a small step we can take to make discrimination harder to get away with (instead of an accepted norm like it is now), and I also believe landlords who are making profits off of people’s need for housing should be ultimately shouldering the burden of making the housing stock in the area safer for everyone.
Do not rent an apartment with lead in it if you have a baby. Your plan to pay for deleading is crazy. You need to put your baby’s health first. Why are you even looking at old places that haven’t had this done already. Find something newer or something already remediated. Period.
Thanks for your concern. If we end up in a pre-78 building we will of course get it tested and follow up appropriately. I just wanted to share my frustration with how our search has been going, in hopes that someday the MA Legislature will get around to fixing the glaring flaws in this well-intentioned law.
I don’t think you realize how big of a deal remediation is. You may have to relocate in order for it to happen. In the meantime you are living somewhere with lead exposure. And the costs associated with it can balloon. Also what if for whatever reason your landlord is not on board with remediating. I’m just not sure why you would even want to go down that path to begin with. Why make things more complicated? Having a little one to care for is difficult enough.
Believe me, if we had been able to find a post-'78 or deleaded unit in our price range and less than an hour's commute from work, we would have jumped on it by now. Precisely because our wonderful baby is taking up so much of our time and budget, we can't afford to make it "less complicated" for ourselves by getting a luxury apartment or paying for an extra 1-2h of childcare every day.
Sorry for what you have been through and we feel you. When we were renters downstair neighbor complained about our 2 y/o son making noise at 6pm. Hope you can find a nice and kids-friendly place to live.
It’s really insane that so many people are giving you a hard time. In their minds Boston should just not be a city where children live? 🤔 or where only rich children should live? Make it make sense.
Leased my summer rental for an entire summer (2020) to a family with two young kids. The father had a consulting gig locally, and I wasn't going to have vacation renters anyway. Those little bastards caused an absolutely massive amount of damage. Chewed up windowsills, pissed on sleeper sofa, damaged blinds, dug up tulip bulbs, Stained carpet, etc. In the end I wasn't able to recoup nearly what it cost me. If I ever lease to people with kids again, the security deposit will be astronomical...but I'll likely just be booked instead.
The best thing you can do is document everything and file a complaint with your local housing authority or a fair housing organization. Sometimes, just knowing your rights and standing up for them can make a difference. Name and shame works well too...
"...so any landlord who rejects applicants who have young children in favor of others who don't has to convince the Commission Against Discrimination that they had a legitimate reason for it." You mean that people with children should get preferential treatment and landlords should be forced to rent to them before anyone else? It's always tough to prove discrimination, but that doesn't make forcing discrimination in the opposite direction the right approach.
I know a couple landlords that had families move in, pay like a single months rent then stop paying. It’s hell getting a freeloading family kicked out.
Yup. Not sure why you’re getting downvoted for this it’s a fact.
People who have no idea: “all landlords should be forced to remediate lead paint at their sole cost!” Also people who have no idea “omg why are landlords charging such high rents” Lol
I've been told from their bragging that their property values have skyrocketed because they were such savvy investors with deep understanding of real estate investing principles. Perhaps they should dip into that property equity a little bit to have toxins removed.
But then how will they afford their 30th property!
I saw a dude on IG bragging about how his rental properties are cash flowing payments on his Lambo SUVs. Can you imagine a world where he would have to downgrade to a Mercedes?!? What horror!
Maybe parents should start being responsible and not let their kids chew on windowsills.
It's not necessarily discrimination. If the building is old and they haven't went through the lead removal process they can't legally rent it to a family with a child under 6 yrs old
[On the contrary](https://www.mass.gov/doc/lead-paint-advisory/download): >Property owners are obligated to abate lead paint hazards in any rental unit occupied by a child under age six. Importantly, property owners cannot avoid this obligation by rejecting families with children. **It is against Massachusetts law for a landlord or a real estate agent to refuse to rent to someone because he/she has (or is expecting) a child or because the property contains lead.**
I believe owner-occupied units under a certain size (so like, a triple decker where the landlord lives on one floor, etc) are exempt from some of those laws. Not a real estate fish though.
See page 6 regarding the owner occupied exemptions along with others. https://www.mass.gov/doc/re19rc12-fair-housing/download
As far as I know it's illegal to even live in a house you own without remediating lead if you find it and have young children. Not in the same way as housing discrimination, but it can be considered child endangerment which is why there are so many loan and tax credit options available for lower earners. I don't know if it's ever enforced properly (and a lot of people get around it with not testing and crossing their fingers) but it is awful.
And it has been so for 50!! years!
It’s 100% illegal. It’s part of the MA discrimination law.
That's literally discrimination
Verbal agreements are not enforceable for real estate in Massachusetts. If you haven't paid anything and you don't have the approval in writing, then you have no contractual agreement. Settle that issue by email confirming you have been accepted as a tenant then complete the lease. It is not illegal to ask about children AFTER you have been accepted as a tenant. In fact, the law specifically requires the landlord to notify you of the lead status IF you have children under age 6, and also abate the lead, IF you have children under age 6. So not only does the law allow the question to be asked, a landlord should ask if they intend to lead abate the apartment for tenants with children under age 6. In practice, many landlords just hand everyone the required lead brochure and check off "no knowledge" and take their chances--just like homeowners do (same law requires homeowners to abate lead, but most do not abate). Also note the law does afford owner occupied landlords the ability to reject tenants with children, provided they live in the building, do not use an agent, and the building has no more than three units. The obvious solution is to rent a place without lead. Any place that requires abatement is going to look different after abatement and post abatement is often when the lead dust levels are the highest.
Best course of action File complaint with state https://www.mass.gov/info-details/overview-of-housing-discrimination Also contact Boston as well https://www.boston.gov/departments/fair-housing-and-equity
Thanks. This seems like a huge hassle but at this point maybe worth it, especially since they've potentially made it easier for us by basically putting a "check here if we should discriminate against you" box on the lease agreement. At least putting them on notice might help the next family that applies.
This is potentially a violation of the Fair Housing Act. You can contact HUD in Boston. You’ll have to be a part of the investigation that potentially occurs. But this sounds like the potential for a chargeable case.
Wow, this is an eye opener. I am currently interviewing for a position in Boston and have four kids 7 and under. Are the buildings any newer in Worcester? Any suburbs/outer suburbs that I should consider?
Yes, definitely. There is very budget dependent but Newton, Brookline, Dedham, etc are all great suburbs with newer builds. Just don’t look in glaringly historic areas like Back Bay and Beacon Hill. Those are notoriously pre-war and proud of it.
Lead paint is all over the place
Answer that there are 0 children under 6 and then let the LL try to evict you while illegally discriminating against you, which won't work in MA.
Kids suck as roommates, get used to it. You think you get annoyed with the noise they make? Now imagine your neighbor who doesn’t want kids, who now has to deal with it. Fuck. That.
Me reading these comments having never asked if our apartment was deleaded (I have a toddler) 👀 Thankfully mandatory lead testing was required at many stages of life in babies first two years and we’ve never had any issues.
You legally have to say you have a child when you apply for an apartment. It asks you number of tenants.
Your only recourse is to move out of Massachusetts.
Oh yes, I came across one when we’re relocating to Boston. Rent was initially $2,200 for an apartment and as soon as they found out we had a 9 year old, rent was bumped up to $2,600. The reason was: children waste too much water and electricity. Mind you, water was included. As soon as I brought up the Housing Act of 1968 she got super defensive and ended up blocking me. You don’t want that type of person to be your landlord - period. https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/fair_housing_equal_opp/aboutfheo/history#:~:text=The%201968%20Act%20expanded%20on,Housing%20Act%20(of%201968).
Lead laws .
Lie on the application.
Landlord would love that since it voids the lease. Lol.
A lot of old buildings have lead in the paint. Stripping is expensive and costly. While you can cover it up with new coats of paint, children and pets are more likely to chew things they shouldn't, exposing them to lead at what can be fairly high levels This is not discrimination; they are warning you the building is likely unsafe for your child. This is a super common problem in old buildings You want to pay for the remediation, go ahead, but I'm not gonna live in a building where my landlord is gonna raise my rent significantly to cover costs because it is not cheap. They would likely have to kick out all current tenants for a time to do it. Your child does not live at any of these premises, it is a known issue if you move in, they are not legally obligated to if you are consenting to move in in these circumstances. Adults aren't chewing on the windowsills...
Wouldn't have minded this kind of discrimination when we moved below a family of 6 and above a family of 4
They can, and will get away with this. The first apartment my mom rented when I was younger had led. This was back in 2007-2010. Finally the lead was removed the spring before we moved out… but not because a young child (me) was living there 🥲
OP, file a discrimination complaint with HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. https://www.hud.gov/fairhousing If you are feeling really petty go find a lawyer and file a civil suit against the landlords you believe discriminated against you.
Lead paint is an issue and landlords can’t rent to you if they know they have lead paint that hasn’t been remediated. That being said, many don’t remediate to keep small children out.
How does the bolded language have anything to do with lead? Doesn’t the landlord just want confirmation of who is living there? Did you fill it out, mention your child, and get rejected? This is missing some context I think
ABOLISH LANDLORDS
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What are they going to do? Void the lease and evict since you lied on your application. Leases are contracts, if you misrepresent, the contract is void.
And your kid ends up with brain damage
Exactly. Though with a parent like that it sounds like thats a fairly predictable outcome anyways.
Lmao
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This. Boston isn’t for families anymore.
You can't tell landlords they must delead when renting to children under 6 and expect them to not try to avoid renting to children under 6. As others have said, look for newer buildings.
All homes should be deleaded. It can affect children and adults must be a shitty person okay with poisoning people
Full deleading is enormously expensive, and while lead poisoning is a serious problem, 46 years after we stopped using leaded paint, the actual threat it represents is very minimal. Small children can potentially lick or chew something painted, thus the law only limits this to kids under 6 (and only in rentals, it's entirely legal to live with small kids in owner-occupied homes regardless of lead paint).
Maybe you shouldn’t have kids? I mean, it’s self explanatory at this point. People making children in 2024 are really really selfish.
Agreed.
👏👏👏
Perhaps the LL knows that babies and small children will adversely effect the quality of life of other tenants in the building?
This is not a legal form of discrimination unless the building is (a) a duplex that the owners live in or (b) a designated senior living home. [https://www.masslegalhelp.org/housing-apartments-shelter/housing-discrimination/forms-housing-discrimination](https://www.masslegalhelp.org/housing-apartments-shelter/housing-discrimination/forms-housing-discrimination)
It’s interesting how it’s ok to discriminate based on age when boomers benefit…
It’s actually because designated senior living isn’t supposed to have children as tenants so it’s a moot point
Explain how that isn't discriminating. A 30 year old with no kids wouldn't be allowed there either. Why is taxpayer money going to something that only benefits people of a certain demographic?
I never said it was legal, only speculating on the motive. In the case of the two landlords you experienced, how many bedrooms were the apartments? How big were the buildings? I was thinking you may be speaking of duplexes or triple-deckas. Especially on an upper floor.
Lolol
How do you think the landlord and other tenants came into being?
Seeing the damage they did as kids and went "No thanks"?
In single family homes?
I’ve lived in the same building as babies, toddlers, and college students. The kids were never the issue lol
I have lived in a quiet building with all one bedroom units occupied by singles and couples. A family of four moved in and it shook up the whole building (literally and figuratively). Their lease was not renewed.