5 ms·

How weird - I used to live in that same house that's featured in that article. 1908 Colony St. in Mountain View, CA. I remember the landlord made me sign an agr

by fkj_9 9y ago

How weird - I used to live in that same house that's featured in that article. 1908 Colony St. in Mountain View, CA. I remember the landlord made me sign an agreement that indemnifies them from legal responsibility in the event I get sick from drinking the water, or leaky vapors, or whatever. It basically read that if I get sick for any reason, I can't sue anyone for it. What a lovely and generous place SV is!

dqpb 9y ago
Why would you sign that?
- fkj_9 9y ago
  Because I young, broke and desperately looking for a place to live that was convenient and affordable.
  - sjg007 9y ago
    Keep the windows open... buy bottled water.
gowld 9y ago
Would you prefer I sue you if I get sick for any reason? Do you want to pay the cost of environmental remediation in your rent? I'm sure your landlord would be willing to allow that.
- fkj_9 9y ago
  I would prefer you not sue me if you get sick for any reason. Though I am not a multi-million dollar corporation responsible for toxic waste under your bed. I don't want to pay the cost of environmental remediation through my rent. I would rather an agreement was reached to either deem the area uninhabitable or clean it thoroughly and deem it safe, in which case the non-liability clause oughtn't be necessary. I dislike the lack of guarantee either way. I didn't mean to trivialize a complicated issue. It was more so hyperbolic musing that in an area that supposedly epitomizes Western civilization, technological progress and elevates humanism, we can't even guarantee basic safety from the elements.
  - stevenwoo 9y ago
    It's mentioned in the link to the Atlantic article people are sharing that tech industries in the valley were specifically requested to hide all traditional outward signatures of industry like smokestacks and storage tanks to make the industrial buildings more acceptable to suburban folks - and it actually worked.
  - gowld 9y ago
    The person who owns your apartment building did not also operate the semiconductor fab that dumped toxic chemicals into the ground.
- jonknee 9y ago
  It should be illegal to rent out a place that you believe is an environmental hazard. If this seems onerous, imagine the landlord knew the structure had dangerous wiring and wanted to waive liability for any fire damage.
timcederman 9y ago
I thought the photo in that article looked familiar. Burbed covered the sale of them back in the day: http://www.burbed.com/tag/gables-end/ http://www.burbed.com/tag/gables-end/
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
hangonhn 9y ago
I’ve done a bit of research on this issue and the plume that is in the soil. It’s not that bad for several reasons. The contamination is TCE. TCE is a carcinogen and responsible for the “cancer spike” in the Whisman neighborhood about a mile or two away. It takes many years of exposure to increase your risk of cancer though. But its effects are much more acute against a fetus. TCE is destroyed by sunlight. It only becomes a problem when it accumulates inside a building. With that in mind, the houses in the community were built with mitigation techniques — techniques that are familiar to anyone who’ve lived in areas with radon. First the houses are built with vapor barriers. This is to prevent the TCE vapors from seeping in. Second, the foundation have internal ventilation and vanes to draw air out (called sub slab ventilation). This is why you see so many of them at the roof of these houses. The design was approved by the EPA. (Google uses positive air pressure to mitigate in their buildings) The EPA also monitors the plume and have done checks inside the houses to ensure TCE aren’t getting in. Also, the remediation and cleanup of the soil has progressed faster than expected. It should all be cleaned up within a decade, IIRC. Lastly, the plume has migrated away from the neighborhood and is basically headed towards the 101 and Google. The people who should be concerned aren’t the people living in the newer houses but the ones who live in the houses built before the TCE issue was recognized. A place I was renting had the same issue but from a different plume. As a renter the landlord wasn’t required to tell me this. I found out completely by accident after I had already moved in. I can’t believe that is legal since there is an acute risk to pregnant women, especially when the building has no mitigation methods. This is often the case because many buildings in SV are fairly old. Here’s an article that talks a bit about the plume and community: https://mv-voice.com/news/2011/06/14/new-cleanup-efforts-for-superfund-site https://mv-voice.com/news/2011/06/14/new-cleanup-efforts-for... And an updated one that tells you about the progress: https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2014/01/28/epa-reaches-3-million-settlement-for-toxic-cleanup https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2014/01/28/epa-reaches-3-milli...

by fkj_9 9y ago

dqpb 9y ago

Why would you sign that?

fkj_9 9y ago
Because I young, broke and desperately looking for a place to live that was convenient and affordable.
- sjg007 9y ago
  Keep the windows open... buy bottled water.

gowld 9y ago

Would you prefer I sue you if I get sick for any reason? Do you want to pay the cost of environmental remediation in your rent? I'm sure your landlord would be willing to allow that.

fkj_9 9y ago
I would prefer you not sue me if you get sick for any reason. Though I am not a multi-million dollar corporation responsible for toxic waste under your bed. I don't want to pay the cost of environmental remediation through my rent. I would rather an agreement was reached to either deem the area uninhabitable or clean it thoroughly and deem it safe, in which case the non-liability clause oughtn't be necessary. I dislike the lack of guarantee either way. I didn't mean to trivialize a complicated issue. It was more so hyperbolic musing that in an area that supposedly epitomizes Western civilization, technological progress and elevates humanism, we can't even guarantee basic safety from the elements.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  It's mentioned in the link to the Atlantic article people are sharing that tech industries in the valley were specifically requested to hide all traditional outward signatures of industry like smokestacks and storage tanks to make the industrial buildings more acceptable to suburban folks - and it actually worked.
- gowld 9y ago
  The person who owns your apartment building did not also operate the semiconductor fab that dumped toxic chemicals into the ground.
jonknee 9y ago
It should be illegal to rent out a place that you believe is an environmental hazard. If this seems onerous, imagine the landlord knew the structure had dangerous wiring and wanted to waive liability for any fire damage.

timcederman 9y ago

I thought the photo in that article looked familiar. Burbed covered the sale of them back in the day: http://www.burbed.com/tag/gables-end/ http://www.burbed.com/tag/gables-end/

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

hangonhn 9y ago

I’ve done a bit of research on this issue and the plume that is in the soil. It’s not that bad for several reasons. The contamination is TCE. TCE is a carcinogen and responsible for the “cancer spike” in the Whisman neighborhood about a mile or two away. It takes many years of exposure to increase your risk of cancer though. But its effects are much more acute against a fetus. TCE is destroyed by sunlight. It only becomes a problem when it accumulates inside a building. With that in mind, the houses in the community were built with mitigation techniques — techniques that are familiar to anyone who’ve lived in areas with radon. First the houses are built with vapor barriers. This is to prevent the TCE vapors from seeping in. Second, the foundation have internal ventilation and vanes to draw air out (called sub slab ventilation). This is why you see so many of them at the roof of these houses. The design was approved by the EPA. (Google uses positive air pressure to mitigate in their buildings) The EPA also monitors the plume and have done checks inside the houses to ensure TCE aren’t getting in. Also, the remediation and cleanup of the soil has progressed faster than expected. It should all be cleaned up within a decade, IIRC. Lastly, the plume has migrated away from the neighborhood and is basically headed towards the 101 and Google. The people who should be concerned aren’t the people living in the newer houses but the ones who live in the houses built before the TCE issue was recognized. A place I was renting had the same issue but from a different plume. As a renter the landlord wasn’t required to tell me this. I found out completely by accident after I had already moved in. I can’t believe that is legal since there is an acute risk to pregnant women, especially when the building has no mitigation methods. This is often the case because many buildings in SV are fairly old. Here’s an article that talks a bit about the plume and community: https://mv-voice.com/news/2011/06/14/new-cleanup-efforts-for-superfund-site https://mv-voice.com/news/2011/06/14/new-cleanup-efforts-for... And an updated one that tells you about the progress: https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2014/01/28/epa-reaches-3-million-settlement-for-toxic-cleanup https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2014/01/28/epa-reaches-3-milli...