14 ms·

My apartment was built on toxic waste

465 points by czechdeveloper 6y ago

ystad 6y ago
The need for more housing is causing people to cut corners. This seems like the making for a class action lawsuit
EGreg 6y ago
There needs to be a "ZAGAT's" for toxicity (in commercial and residential real estate). So at least there can be something owned and managed by the public, and not having to rely on these agencies, many of whom need to balance "economic freedom / business friendliness" with the facts. Such a site would need to be either hosted offshore, or have deep pockets to protect against defamation lawsuits and other litigation. It would also need to have a great process for removing false positives and false negatives. What process would that be, though? It would have to involve actual testing by trusted agencies, I think.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  I do a bit of side work as an environmental law journalist primarily covering Superfund cases. A lot of this data is publicly available from the EPA, especially with respect to Superfund sites. Unfortunately the data is not available in an easily digestible form. It’s tucked away in long-winded PDF reports that are unique to each site so the data collected and the way it’s presented isn’t uniform. But I do think the data is, for the most part, robust, reliable, and available if someone made the effort to devise a way to scrape and parse it.
  - bjacobt 6y ago
    That sounds like a good project! I looked at the documents for a site and see what you mean. I can contribute if you or someone can help navigate the documents.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  > these agencies, many of whom need to balance "economic freedom / business friendliness" with the facts. These agencies should not be concerned with anything other than facts and any attempt to interfere with them (as in balancing business friendliness with facts) should be considered a serious crime against the safety of the population.
  - EGreg 6y ago
    Come on, these agencies balance things all the time. They have political interest. All of these actions can be considered crimes against the safety of populations. Just from this year: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-officials-note-serious-problems-in-coronavirus-response-the-world-health-organization-keeps-praising-them/2020/02/08/b663dd7c-4834-11ea-91ab-ce439aa5c7c1_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-of... https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/08/872419850/even-in-a-pandemic-who-believes-that-public-protests-are-important https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/08/8724198... https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/03/europe/europe-russia-vaccines-analysis-intl-cmd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/03/europe/europe-russia-vaccines... https://www.bbc.com/news/55800921 https://www.bbc.com/news/55800921 https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-52088167 https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-52088167 They can’t be trusted to just stick to the facts.
    - rbanffy 6y ago
      That’s why we need to make laws that forbid misrepresentation of facts in public functions.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
eplanit 6y ago
I'm glad she found relief, but it's odd that there wasn't illness in many more people. The symptoms are very extreme... then I caught the clue: "I work full time as a program manager while attending law school to become a public interest attorney." A new Erin Brockovich, it seems. I can't help but recall axiom that if your focus is looking for trouble, you're certain to find it. The story would have more credibility if there were more illnesses, then it wouldn't smack of resume padding.
- trianglesphere 6y ago
  It is odd that more people didn't have symptoms, but given that the symptoms preceded discovering that her apartment was next to the toxic waste it's more likely than not that this is legitimate.
  - ohazi 6y ago
    The symptoms also stopped when she left.
    - galangalalgol 6y ago
      Having lived in a new apartment building, the smell was very strong even without a superfund underneath. What are the odds every new apartment tenant is being poisoned, but most don't have asthma or other sensitivities to make it obvious and are training in a profession that teaches them to look for it?
      - trianglesphere 6y ago
        It's possible that every tenant is being poisoned (and I'd suggest that this is not good either). There's some evidence that the new car smell isn't good, and the articles reference that problem being with VOCs (link to study https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202100026X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202...).
    - jandrese 6y ago
nzmsv 6y ago
Occam's razor would lead to this summary: person finds out that the apartment was built on a former toxic waste site, gives themselves a panic attack. Of course, there is always the possibility that her unit was somehow special, but it's incredibly unlikely. Statements like "how would they know I was looking into it" and " and "why would they offer me to break the lease with no penalty" further strengthen the mental health angle. This isn't to make fun or diminish the author's concerns. It's just that one root cause is much much more likely and really should be investigated first. I hope she has someone caring in her life to look into that angle. Edit: happy to burn some karma on this in case this helps someone get help for a loved one. Mental health issues are excruciatingly hard to deal with and I have first hand experience. It sucks when you realize that to help someone you have to go against their wishes. This one seems pretty clear cut. The landlord wishing that she would go away is a conspiracy? She talked about this for weeks and is surprised someone thought she may have looked at the environmental reports? And lastly, everyone in the neighboring units is totally fine. And by the way, I am not saying "she is crazy". I am saying "look into both possibilities". I am happy to see that the comment at the top with the most votes is saying the exact same thing.
- rini17 6y ago
  Downvoted as this is pure gaslighting. There is plenty of objective evidence.
  - wait_a_minute 6y ago
    I can’t downvote yet since not enough karma, but upvoted you.
  - refulgentis 6y ago
    Wouldn't say there's plenty, and for sure accusing the poster of "pure gaslighting" is way overboard: VOCs are a broad category, off the shelf monitoring equipment, and surveying the environmental remidiation plan, do not a full tale make. Hence, why OP wrote the post...they still don't have answers or help...
    - 6y ago
ohazi 6y ago
> Can the legal system help? > I reached out to environmental attorneys. It quickly became an issue that my lease agreement included litigation and class action waivers. This bullshit needs to stop.
- alexfromapex 6y ago
  The legal system is stacked against the little guy. Would be even worse if there was an arbitration agreement.
  - ed25519FUUU 6y ago
    Arbitration agreements have no effect on criminal law.
    - GavinMcG 6y ago
      What makes you think this is something that criminal law would address? The vast vast majority of these sorts of issues with corporations are handled via civil suits. That even includes wage theft, which is the largest category of theft several times over. Congress and state legislatures have by and large decided (so far) not to criminalize corporate wrongdoing unless it impacts shareholders.
- syntaxing 6y ago
  Seriously, I don’t see why this is legal. Sure, s/he should of read the lease carefully but sometimes landlord’s purposely stuff their lease agreements which makes it equivalent to online terms of service.
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    Read the reactions to many issues on this site. It tells the story. People believe in their own exceptionalism and have a strange perspective on freedom. That’s the toolbox that companies use to divide and conquer. It was particularly hilarious back a few years ago when major tech companies were colluding to suppress salaries and blacklist employees through “no poaching” agreements. The reaction to this sort of complaint is “just move somewhere else” or “that may be a problem for some ditz like you, but I am a 10x genius”.
wait_a_minute 6y ago
Fine the real-estate billionaire owner until he fixes the problem in his apartments or is no longer a billionaire, and use the fines to clean it up and build new property. We desperately need a proper wealth tax and anti-NIMBY laws. Make more housing construction and super high-rise high-end apartments for all part of our infrastructure spending. It’s time.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  What if the owner is not a billionaire? You certainly don’t need to be one to own an apartment building, you probably don’t even need to be a multimillionaire, as you can finance the project on loans. Additionally, the building is probably owned by an LLC, so even if the owner of the LLC is a billionaire, you can’t fine him personally, and his billions are irrelevant.
  - rtkwe 6y ago
    You need to have pretty significant assets to get a foot in the door to large buildings from what I've read these buildings are rarely the only collateral on the loan.
  - lawwantsin17 6y ago
    You just know everything don't you? What are you the owner's son? Fuck your worthless arguments.
  - scrose 6y ago
    Directly from the article: > The owner, Donald Bren, is reportedly worth $15.3 billion.
  - titanomachy 6y ago
    Assuming he got rich by building this company, his billions in wealth would be mostly in the form of his ownership of the company. So not entirely irrelevant.
nynx 6y ago
There are quite a few people in the comments here trying to hint that this woman is mistaken somehow. This casual sexism is quite unfortunate.
- kyberias 6y ago
  How is it sexist?
  - nynx 6y ago
    Because they wouldn't question it if the person in question was male. I've seen this pattern far too many times.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      That's nonsense. Please don't litter comments with the "everything is sexism"-stuff.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - kyberias 6y ago
      You don't know that to be true. I have questioned similar claims myself and many of the people have been male. Mostly women though.
    - sidlls 6y ago
      > Because they wouldn't question it if the person in question was male. You don't know that. This has become one of those ridiculous "truisms" that isn't necessarily true, at this point.
      - elliekelly 6y ago
        Or perhaps it is a “truism” with a long and repeatedly documented history of being true: https://www.rti.org/insights/myth-female-hysteria-and-health-disparities-among-women https://www.rti.org/insights/myth-female-hysteria-and-health...
whatsavoc 6y ago
It mentions she used various monitors to detect the VOcs. Anyone know of a decent reliable VOC monitor?
- kawsper 6y ago
  Awair Element: https://uk.getawair.com/home/element https://uk.getawair.com/home/element
  - sydd 6y ago
    hmm I don't know how this one works, but I'd be very wary of devices that are not equipped by a sensor thats bulging out of the device or one with a fan moving the air into the sensor.
    - tekacs 6y ago
      It does have a fan that draws air in (I believe through the hole in the front). I’ve seen these and you can hear it running during operation.
- thomasjudge 6y ago
  There's several available for around $100 on Amazon. I have one, it is hard to know how accurate/complete it is with respect to VOC detection, I mainly use mine for PM10 detection during fire season, and it seems reasonably accurate in that it agrees with the state's readings
syntaxing 6y ago
I never would of though to check something like this. Interestingly, the EPA has a GIS API so I see a couple people make maps on ARCGIS. Definitely making something for my house purchase. [1] https://gispub.epa.gov/arcgis/rest/services/OEI/FRS_INTERESTS/MapServer/21 https://gispub.epa.gov/arcgis/rest/services/OEI/FRS_INTEREST...
dbsmith83 6y ago
I myself bought an air quality monitor, and am happy I did (uHoo). I have several gas appliances and was concerned about NOx and other possible gases. It turns out everything is about normal, except that CO2 levels in the basement tend to get elevated. I had no idea that this was something that happened. I now make sure to try and air it out down there once in a bit and take breaks more often, since that is where my office is set up.
- c0nsumer 6y ago
  I bought a CO2 meter for work, with the intention of taking it into (small) conference rooms once in a while to see what happened to the CO2 there. What I found surprised but pleased me: The CO2 levels at my desk are quite low, spike at night when HVAC is off (when the building is empty), but generally during daytime are about the same as being at home with windows open in a suburban area. Granted, it's been more than a year since I've sat at my desk... But still, it was nice to know.
- paulryanrogers 6y ago
  How reliable are those devices? Last I looked only the professional ones ($150+) could guarantee independently verified results. Consumer stuff often depended upon calibration and might vary wildly even between two different devices by the same manufacturer.
  - dbsmith83 6y ago
    The one I have is from https://getuhoo.com/home https://getuhoo.com/home and was around $300. For CO2, it looks like resolution is 1 ppm with a tolerance of ±50 ppm or ±3% of reading (higher of the two). I can't speak to how well it is calibrated since you would need other devices to compare with.
PragmaticPulp 6y ago
“Sick building syndrome” is a difficult topic to discuss because it’s very difficult to prove a connection between the vague symptoms and the building. In many cases, only a single person seems susceptible to the claimed building issues. In this case, the apartment complex appears to have over 1,800 units, which makes it surprising that only a single person is experiencing such dramatic effects. Unfortunately, doubting these people’s stories is taboo online so I’m going to tread carefully. However, when only 1 unit out of 1800 apartments (presumably 2000-3000 total residents considering multi-bedroom units) is experiencing severe and dramatic symptoms, my first guess would not be the soil under the foundation. I would be looking for building materials or chemical spills in that specific apartment unit. Also, I’m not suggesting that we discount this person’s story. Their symptoms are certainly very real in that they are suffering, but the selfie of the person wearing medical equipment in front of a mirror combined with measurements from consumer devices as evidence should be approached with caution. There is a relatively new phenomenon casually known as Munchausen by Internet where some patients are drawn to the increasing attention they can garner by sharing, and unfortunately exaggerating, their stories on the internet. These patients often post selfies of themselves wearing medical equipment, in doctor’s offices, or in hospital beds. More commonly, typical patients prefer not to be photographed with medical equipment or in medical facilities. Again, I’m not suggesting we disbelieve this person, but it’s important that we consider the bigger picture (1800 unit apartment complex, apparently only one case of severe symptoms?) before accepting a single person’s analysis of what is causing her issues. Mistaken “sick building syndrome” diagnoses can actually be very detrimental to patients who mistake other illnesses as being caused by their buildings, as they hyperfocus on their presumed explanation to the exclusion of following more typical diagnostic work ups that would help them eliminate more common explanations for those symptoms.
- georgeam 6y ago
  The article mentions that there is a 500 gallon tank of some toxic material buried at a unknown location in the property. 500 gallons is very small -- 66 cubic feet, which is about 4 ft by 4 ft by 4 ft. In my opinion, that makes it completely plausible that a problem relating to that tank could be so localized that it will only affect one tenant. I'm not saying her problem was due to the 500 gallon tank. All I'm saying is that if it is, then it is not unbelievable that it affected only one (or a small number) of tenants.
EMM_386 6y ago
I'm curious at what the VOCs were that were being measured by the home devices. Indoor VOCs can be caused by numerous common sources. Some of these would be common in a new development: - Paints/Coatings - Flooring - Furniture - Cleaners & Disinfectants Even though she states "I also noticed the tVOCs seemed to rise and fall at different times of the day when I was having the worst symptoms", this can be affected by things such as the rise and fall of the temperature in the indoor space, or even whether something as seemingly benign as candles are lit. I have no say in this either way, as it would require testing of other similar units and finding out if there are any specific VOC sources in her individual unit (did a room get painted recently)? When dealing with indoor VOC levels, it can get tricky.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  > Furniture That's a good point. The article dwells on the remediations done to the site that admittedly may not be effective, but didn't mention furniture in the unit. It could be her couch or a cleaner she's using.
  - Sunspark 6y ago
    Molds emit VOCs which is also a possibility in some places. You might not be exposed to the spores directly, but the gases emitted by the growth travels through.
- relax88 6y ago
  This is a great point, I've heard of people purchasing a piece of furniture, getting wicked allergy symptoms/irriated airways, buying one of these tVOC meters, and finding out it's their chair/couch/etc. She got sick when she moved in? What new furniture did she buy?
  - kevingadd 6y ago
    Yeah, I bought a tempurpedic mattress once and the off-gassing (which the salesman insisted wouldn't happen) obliterated my lungs for like a week. Could barely talk, had to sleep on the floor downstairs and leave the bedroom windows open the whole time to air it out.
iJohnDoe 6y ago
What a nightmare. When you’re sick, a lot of times your home is your safe place. You go home and crawl in bed and try to feel better. Imagine your safe place to feel better is causing you to become even sicker.
dehrmann 6y ago
> one of my neighbors at the same complex complained about blue tap water and paid for a private lab test showing “very high” levels of lead, copper and other contaminants in the water. That's weird, though "copper" could just be from the pipes, and it's probably unrelated to VOCs. The complex should be on city water, and all the pipes are new.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  Also copper is an essential trace element and the acceptable amount of copper in drinking water is quite high, 1.3 ppm. If that were the actual concentration of copper in this apartment's tap water, the pipes will be corroded through in no time. Anyway if a lab test shows more than 1.3 ppm of copper in drinking water then a tenant should, immediately, move to a hotel, stop paying the rent, and file a legal claim for loss of enjoyment plus the cost of temporary accommodation, which would be a slam-dunk of a suit.
amluto 6y ago
> The completion report said, “While not an environmental remedy, because there are no significant risks, a VIMS consisting of a vapor barrier and a sub-slab venting system has been designed and installed.” Installing these apparently could cost millions of dollars. It’s curious to me that Roux would plan to build four VIMS, or even build one, if they really thought VOCs were not an issue. That sounds awfully like the way that ordinary houses are constructed, especially anywhere with (naturally occurring!) radium in or under the soil. When one builds a house with a slab foundation, one first builds a capillary break (a bunch of rocks with no fines, perhaps — this is an air-permeable layer), then applies a vapor barrier (polyethylene sheets), then pours the slab directly on the vapor barrier. The only thing special about sub slab venting is a pipe from the capillary break to the roof that may or may not be fan assisted. The goal isn’t so much to remove gas from under the slab as to reduce the pressure under the slab below the pressure above the slab such that gas doesn’t intrude. All of this except the pipe is done regardless of soil gas concerns — water vapor coming through the slab destroys floor coverings. I know basically nothing about commercial construction, and I could easily believe that vapor barriers are optional under parking lots. Given that the VOCs in question are easily measurable in real time with a cheap sensor, it could be interesting to measure the VOCs at the lowest level of the parking lot over time. Some parking lots have CO (or CO2?) sensors that control exhaust fans. If there is less car activity at 3am, the fans could turn off, and that could have any number of effects. (Also, the author doesn’t seem to have tried to distinguish between gasses coming from the building and gasses coming from under or outside the building. There is no actual evidence I saw in the article that the problem is a problem with the site. Heck, a building air intake being contaminated by gasses from the parking lot could introduce a fair amount of CO and NOx even if the levels were too low to set off a CO alarm. Builders mess up the airflow in buildings all the time. Sadly, NOx sensors do not appear to be available at comparable prices to tVOC and CO sensors.
mint2 6y ago
Most people here seem concerned about vocs. Plastics, carpets, sofas, paints, air fresheners and a ton of other typical household items produce them. I feel like the author is really jumping the gun here in identifying the source of pollutants by not seeking to consider the fact that new apartments are loaded with freshly off-gassing materials. The other thing that should have been mentioned is more about their vitals prior to moving in. How confident was she in her baseline because it could be a preexisting condition that became very exacerbated. Edit: But that said, my opinion of the Irvine company is extremely low. I’d not be the least bit surprised if they willfully cut every corner they could. Either with remediation or materials in the apartment. And pollutants do pool overnight but near freeways they are typically the worst in the dawn hours. There would be less air exchange in the apartment, leading to a buildup from an external or internal source.
- dosethree 5y ago
  Typically you have doors and windows closed at night, so with reduced ventilation its typical for c02 or VOCs to spike. It must suck to live somewhere (LA?) where opening the windows doesn't help
jjjeii3 6y ago
Lucky, you are living in United States and not in Europe. In Germany, even if you successfully sue local authorities, you will get a tiny compensation like 1000 euro. Another example to show how bad Europe is: if you will be putted to jail by mistake in Germany, until recently you will only get 25 euro per day... In United States Craig Coley got 1400 $ for each day (the case was closed in 2019)! That's more than 50x the amount you can get in Germany. In Europe, your life worth nothing, just like in the north Korea.
- ricardobayes 6y ago
  Do you judge the 'goodness' of a country or a continent by the amounts paid for settlements? Why?
- derriz 6y ago
  That’s not the the case everywhere in Europe. This guy got over $2m for two years of wrongful imprisonment - https://www.irishtimes.com/news/shortt-awarded-1-9m-for-wrongful-imprisonment-1.1183470 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/shortt-awarded-1-9m-for-wron...
evan_ 6y ago
I’m interested in the 3:00am spike shown on the monitors and her physical response. Could the building’s HVAC be programmed to turn on (or off) at that time?
walterbell 6y ago
Are there good open-source components for air quality monitoring, e.g multiple sensors that work with a common software platform, for continuous data collection and analysis? Ideally something that works with low-cost boards like ESP32.
- jfim 6y ago
  Not that I'm aware of, but it's actually pretty easy to build one from off the shelf parts (ESP8266, Plantower PMSA003, Sensirion SHT31, Sensirion SGP30, Senseair S8), which was my pet project during the pandemic. Basic soldering skills required, but otherwise nothing really complicated about it. I can write something about it if there's any interest.
  - mellavora 6y ago
    I've had good support from airgradient (https://www.airgradient.com/blog/2020/08/25/the-airgradient-diy-sensor/ https://www.airgradient.com/blog/2020/08/25/the-airgradient-...) The linked DIY instructions give you a basic board with PM 2.5 particles, temp, humidity, and CO2. It is built on a Wemos D1 mini. The founder (Achim) is very helpful. If you wanted to use these plans to get started (including the software to power the Wemos), then buy whatever additional sensors you might like to add, it should be fairly simple.
    - jfim 6y ago
      The BOM is similar but it's not very compact. I have yet to 3D print a case for mine and get the PCB manufactured, but the dimensions for it are roughly 1"x1"x2" assembled, when not on a breadboard.
  - walterbell 6y ago
    > I can write something about it if there's any interest That would be great. https://sigrok.org/ https://sigrok.org/ can log data from basic CO2 monitors, maybe it could be extended to support the sensors you mentioned.
Aboh33 6y ago
Some years back I signed a lease in a luxury apartment hi-rise in downtown Chicago. The complex had been an add-on to an existing shopping center and mall. Long story short, the apartment smelled like old grease and trash often, and I could never trace the exact source as it would come and go. No matter how many air filtration units I installed, or odor absorbing devices, the odors would still collect and infiltrate my clothing and furniture. Again, it wasn't constant but regular enough for me not to stay there very often. I ended up caulking the entire apartment with clear caulk and sealing any air gaps. Because the hi-rise was pressurized like most hi-rises, I concluded somehow this was drawing up smells from grease traps etc. Of course I could never prove it. My conclusion is that most of these buildings are so cheaply and poorly made that I will never again rent a unit like this. Too bad I spent 30k on the lease and hardly ever stayed there. So the woman's experience seems pretty plausible to me.
- crocsarecool 6y ago
  I’m surprised she didn’t try to escape from her apartment like you did. She mentions sleeping outside on an occasion, but that’s about it. I think I would have paid some money to go to a hotel, stay with a friend, grab an AirBnB someplace just to figure out if my symptoms went away. The things she was experiencing sounded just horrible.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    The difficulty there is if you believe your home is making you sick, you’re quite likely to feel more at ease and sleep better in another place. Or you’re sleeping away from all your new furnishings and the building materials which are off-gassing. So, you get a datapoint that’s better, but what do you do with it?
- kevin_nisbet 6y ago
  > I ended up caulking the entire apartment with clear caulk and sealing any air gaps. Because the hi-rise was pressurized like most hi-rises, I concluded somehow this was drawing up smells from grease traps etc. I would be cautious of taking actions like these as it can have some pretty bad knock on effects. I'm on the board of my condo corporation for a high rise in Canada and we have seen topics like this come up from time to time. To help control odour between units, the air handling system in our building is designed to draw air into the hallways, from the hallways to the units, to outside. The idea of routing airflow like this is to try and prevent smell transfer between units, but the airflow also has a purpose to help control moisture buildup, which IIRC gets worse if there is no airflow, and can lead to mold. So we discourage blocking the airflow from the way the building was designed, and property management has advised us in other buildings this had been observed to lead to severe moisture problems. And we have had issue pop up with trash smell and the like. Where that's happened to us is two causes, there is a sort of air damper on the garbage chute, and it's gotten jammed on us IIRC. The other is our garbage room opens to take the bins out, and if the doors are left open for an extended period and the wind hits the building right it can draw air through the garbage room and through the chute. This can also occur when folks leave their trash blocking the chute door open allowing more air to flow between the chute and hallways. Stuff like that can be hard to figure out, because if the garbage room is left open every day, it doesn't always happen due to the wind or possibly other factors. The third one we get sometimes is smoking smells, which is usually caused by a smoker not wanting to use their balcony in winter, so instead they go into the stairwells. We traced one of those across more than 20 floors once. It can be difficult to trace those ones, so it comes with a lot of sending broadcast messages and work to trace down. I get not all property managers are super helpful, but if they get a few reports from different individuals and can link it to some action like having the garbage room open can hopefully have them solve the real problem.
floatingatoll 6y ago
As a reminder to SFbay folks, if you’re near a local waterway and you smell a strong smell of vanilla cupcakes, you might be breathing an industrial toxin that leached from a local superfund site. (Don’t panic, it won’t kill you quickly!) It’s unfortunate that her VOCs were odorless because if they were cupcake-odored there wouldn’t have been any argument.
- titanomachy 6y ago
  Immediately made me think of the 30 Rock maple syrup thing: https://youtu.be/OgjXSWsE5Es?t=27 https://youtu.be/OgjXSWsE5Es?t=27
kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago
This is fucking crazy, but also peak San Fransisco. Can't say I am surprised. I just do not understand how people live in that crazy bubble.
- microtherion 6y ago
  It's so peak San Francisco that it happened 50 miles from San Francisco…
  - kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago
    That area is all the same thing
m0llusk 6y ago
Kind of interesting how similar this is to other serious problems with vinyl chloride in Silicon Valley. Also kind of interesting that so many sofa based contamination engineers here didn't bother to investigate any of that. HN has a really serious problem with people who have a weak grasp of complex subjects carrying on like what they say relates to anything.
- freetime2 6y ago
  Can you provide a link with more info about the similar vinyl chloride issues?
almost_usual 6y ago
Living near the Bay is a risk. Landfill sites, chemicals, radioactivity, earthquake shaking intensity, liquefaction, and tsunami risk. Any Bay Area native will tell you living near the Bay is a bad idea. Unfortunately this is where the poor typically live.
runjake 6y ago
There are a lot of armchair scientists touting their ill-informed theories, such as “she lives on the 3rd floor” and “she just passes a lot of gas”. Building are complex structures with numerous pathways and extensive air flow channels that harmful chemicals could pass through or get blown. Often, airflow equipment is in the basement or first floor, blowing air throughout a building. The best way to handle this is to 1) stop the pseudo-scientific babble, and 2) perform scientific measurements of the air quality by qualified professionals. From the article, it looks like she is doing her best to quantify her health issues and to get scientific help. What’s wrong with that?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- freetime2 6y ago
  There have absolutely been cases where well-meaning people on the internet have caused harm by latching on to a pseudo-scientific explanation for an unexplained illness. I’m thinking of anti-vaxxers, chronic lyme disease, etc. I think it’s commendable that the author is trying to quantify her health issues, but I also don’t think she makes a very strong case that the cause is toxic waste in the ground as opposed to some other issue. It is irresponsible in my opinion for her to write an article titled “I thought I was dying: My apartment was built on toxic waste” without more concrete evidence. If she is wrong, this could cause undue panic and suffering for other residents in the area, as well as monetary damages to the building’s owner. Of course there is also the possibility that she is right, too. But given the severity of her symptoms, and the number of residents in the complex, I would expect to see more people showing up at local hospitals with similar issues. I think the correct course of action for a person in this situation would basically be to report the issue to local health authorities and the building’s management, and move out as soon as possible.
raychail10 6y ago
All you internet trolls that have nothing to do to criticize this article need a wake up call. Did you not read anything about how Irvine Co seemed super sketch about the whole thing, refused to investigate, and made retaliatory threats?! Of course no one else would push this through! In my opinion, this girl is a complete badass fighting for answers and instead of criticizing her we ought to share this information so it can be properly investigated. For all of you writing these idiot comments, just think about if you were in her shoes. Instead of victim blaming, how about we get alongside her and try to find answers.
- spicyramen 6y ago
  Do you know about the Orchard Hills case and The AAA plan in Irvine, interesting one https://www.cityofirvine.org/community-development/all-american-asphalt-update https://www.cityofirvine.org/community-development/all-ameri...
xivzgrev 6y ago
This story is very plausible. Just look at the Shipyard condos in San Francisco. They had a cleanup, and apparently some parts of cleanup were fraudulent. So residents are suing. https://www.cpmlegal.com/news-Hunters-Point-Shipyard-homeowners-announce-lawsuit-against-developer-say-we-were-duped https://www.cpmlegal.com/news-Hunters-Point-Shipyard-homeown...
SigmaEpsilonChi 6y ago
Compelling article. Definitely raises real problems deserving of scrutiny; technical, legal, and administrative. I was a little bothered that this is just a direct reprinting of a single (admittedly deep and well-rounded) anecdotal experience, with no input from subject matter experts or independent attempts to contact other tenants. I sent the article to a friend who’s a hydrogeologist and environmental remediation consultant. Basically, the guy that cleanup companies send to assess these sites, take samples, and make remediation plans. His hot take: “Based on the info in the article alone I’d be very surprised if soil or groundwater VOCs were getting into her unit in concentrations high enough to cause acute health effects. Sounds like there’s a vapor venting system installed which in my experience alleviates all indoor air concerns. It could be that it exhausts near her window or something and concentrates in her apartment, but that would be a design/architectural issue more than an environmental issue per se. My initial suspicion would be that she bought cheap furniture or there’s cheap carpets or something that are offgassing VOCs.” A quick read from a single expert isn’t enough to draw conclusions, but I do wish the paper had bothered to seek that kind of input before publishing. Whatever the cause of this person’s symptoms may be, inadequate environmental remediation is a very real problem that deserves our concern. I wish the comments in this thread focused more on that. Instead the primary debate is whether a single person with apparently serious symptoms but no expertise, resources, or authority made the right technical call after being ignored by the people with all the expertise, resources, and authority. IMO that is the real story here: a person bought (a) furnishing for (b) a condo on a plot of (c) remediated land, experienced a health crisis, and the relevant parties (that she’s paying rent and taxes to!) all seem to have ghosted her instead of investigating which of those 3 things was the problem. After an experience like that, how could you blame her for doing her best to collect evidence and draw her own conclusions? Even if the cause she identified is wrong, it’s not imagined. This isn’t “cancer from cell towers” or “migraines from wind turbines”. You just won’t read an article from the victims of industrial pollution in Bayview/Hunter’s Point.
- princekolt 6y ago
  She mentions her vitals returned to normal after moving away, and presumably she took her furniture when she moved, so it seems unlikely it’s caused by that.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dhekir 6y ago
This echoes some vibes of Neal Stephenson's Zodiac. Replace Boston with The Bay, PCBs with VOCs, and fast-forward some 30 years, and there you have it. If only we could learn from past mistakes...
highenergystar 6y ago
I don't see it mentioned here, but I wonder if the trees around the apartment are transpiring the vocs that are absorbed from the (potentially) contaminated water. That would be a way these vocs reach her 3rd floor apt, and also may be why her particular apartment is affected more than others.in the building (proximity to a particular tree?)
heohk 6y ago
I'd bet big bucks it's not the contaminated soil but instead VOCs from cure-in-place plumbing
spicyramen 6y ago
There is an interesting case in Irvine, CA. There's an Asphalt plant which has been operating since 1993. (All American Asphalt company). Few years ago, the City of Irvine approved residential within 1-2 miles of this plant. The area is called Orchard Hills, houses from 1-3M USD. There is an ongoing investigation from UCI, City of Irvine, residents and government air quality control agency as many people reports strong asphalt smell and high VoC. Worth following https://www.cityofirvine.org/community-development/all-american-asphalt-update https://www.cityofirvine.org/community-development/all-ameri...
- gedy 6y ago
  Isn't this though the stereotypical NIMBY nonsense of people knowingly moving into area with existing industry or agricultural, then complaining about smells, etc? Or worse, bulldozing bare land for their housing subdivisions, then complaining about the "environment.
anonuser123456 6y ago
As someone who has previously experienced a somatoform disorder, this sounds a lot like a somatoform disorder.

The need for more housing is causing people to cut corners. This seems like the making for a class action lawsuit

There needs to be a "ZAGAT's" for toxicity (in commercial and residential real estate). So at least there can be something owned and managed by the public, and not having to rely on these agencies, many of whom need to balance "economic freedom / business friendliness" with the facts. Such a site would need to be either hosted offshore, or have deep pockets to protect against defamation lawsuits and other litigation. It would also need to have a great process for removing false positives and false negatives. What process would that be, though? It would have to involve actual testing by trusted agencies, I think.

elliekelly 6y ago
I do a bit of side work as an environmental law journalist primarily covering Superfund cases. A lot of this data is publicly available from the EPA, especially with respect to Superfund sites. Unfortunately the data is not available in an easily digestible form. It’s tucked away in long-winded PDF reports that are unique to each site so the data collected and the way it’s presented isn’t uniform. But I do think the data is, for the most part, robust, reliable, and available if someone made the effort to devise a way to scrape and parse it.
- bjacobt 6y ago
  That sounds like a good project! I looked at the documents for a site and see what you mean. I can contribute if you or someone can help navigate the documents.
rbanffy 6y ago
> these agencies, many of whom need to balance "economic freedom / business friendliness" with the facts. These agencies should not be concerned with anything other than facts and any attempt to interfere with them (as in balancing business friendliness with facts) should be considered a serious crime against the safety of the population.
- EGreg 6y ago
  Come on, these agencies balance things all the time. They have political interest. All of these actions can be considered crimes against the safety of populations. Just from this year: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-officials-note-serious-problems-in-coronavirus-response-the-world-health-organization-keeps-praising-them/2020/02/08/b663dd7c-4834-11ea-91ab-ce439aa5c7c1_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinese-of... https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/08/872419850/even-in-a-pandemic-who-believes-that-public-protests-are-important https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/06/08/8724198... https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/03/europe/europe-russia-vaccines-analysis-intl-cmd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/03/europe/europe-russia-vaccines... https://www.bbc.com/news/55800921 https://www.bbc.com/news/55800921 https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-52088167 https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-52088167 They can’t be trusted to just stick to the facts.
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    That’s why we need to make laws that forbid misrepresentation of facts in public functions.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

eplanit 6y ago

I'm glad she found relief, but it's odd that there wasn't illness in many more people. The symptoms are very extreme... then I caught the clue: "I work full time as a program manager while attending law school to become a public interest attorney." A new Erin Brockovich, it seems. I can't help but recall axiom that if your focus is looking for trouble, you're certain to find it. The story would have more credibility if there were more illnesses, then it wouldn't smack of resume padding.

trianglesphere 6y ago
It is odd that more people didn't have symptoms, but given that the symptoms preceded discovering that her apartment was next to the toxic waste it's more likely than not that this is legitimate.
- ohazi 6y ago
  The symptoms also stopped when she left.
  - galangalalgol 6y ago
    Having lived in a new apartment building, the smell was very strong even without a superfund underneath. What are the odds every new apartment tenant is being poisoned, but most don't have asthma or other sensitivities to make it obvious and are training in a profession that teaches them to look for it?
    - trianglesphere 6y ago
      It's possible that every tenant is being poisoned (and I'd suggest that this is not good either). There's some evidence that the new car smell isn't good, and the articles reference that problem being with VOCs (link to study https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202100026X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041202...).
  - jandrese 6y ago

nzmsv 6y ago

Occam's razor would lead to this summary: person finds out that the apartment was built on a former toxic waste site, gives themselves a panic attack. Of course, there is always the possibility that her unit was somehow special, but it's incredibly unlikely. Statements like "how would they know I was looking into it" and " and "why would they offer me to break the lease with no penalty" further strengthen the mental health angle. This isn't to make fun or diminish the author's concerns. It's just that one root cause is much much more likely and really should be investigated first. I hope she has someone caring in her life to look into that angle. Edit: happy to burn some karma on this in case this helps someone get help for a loved one. Mental health issues are excruciatingly hard to deal with and I have first hand experience. It sucks when you realize that to help someone you have to go against their wishes. This one seems pretty clear cut. The landlord wishing that she would go away is a conspiracy? She talked about this for weeks and is surprised someone thought she may have looked at the environmental reports? And lastly, everyone in the neighboring units is totally fine. And by the way, I am not saying "she is crazy". I am saying "look into both possibilities". I am happy to see that the comment at the top with the most votes is saying the exact same thing.

rini17 6y ago
Downvoted as this is pure gaslighting. There is plenty of objective evidence.
- wait_a_minute 6y ago
  I can’t downvote yet since not enough karma, but upvoted you.
- refulgentis 6y ago
  Wouldn't say there's plenty, and for sure accusing the poster of "pure gaslighting" is way overboard: VOCs are a broad category, off the shelf monitoring equipment, and surveying the environmental remidiation plan, do not a full tale make. Hence, why OP wrote the post...they still don't have answers or help...
  - 6y ago

ohazi 6y ago

> Can the legal system help? > I reached out to environmental attorneys. It quickly became an issue that my lease agreement included litigation and class action waivers. This bullshit needs to stop.

alexfromapex 6y ago
The legal system is stacked against the little guy. Would be even worse if there was an arbitration agreement.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  Arbitration agreements have no effect on criminal law.
  - GavinMcG 6y ago
    What makes you think this is something that criminal law would address? The vast vast majority of these sorts of issues with corporations are handled via civil suits. That even includes wage theft, which is the largest category of theft several times over. Congress and state legislatures have by and large decided (so far) not to criminalize corporate wrongdoing unless it impacts shareholders.
syntaxing 6y ago
Seriously, I don’t see why this is legal. Sure, s/he should of read the lease carefully but sometimes landlord’s purposely stuff their lease agreements which makes it equivalent to online terms of service.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  Read the reactions to many issues on this site. It tells the story. People believe in their own exceptionalism and have a strange perspective on freedom. That’s the toolbox that companies use to divide and conquer. It was particularly hilarious back a few years ago when major tech companies were colluding to suppress salaries and blacklist employees through “no poaching” agreements. The reaction to this sort of complaint is “just move somewhere else” or “that may be a problem for some ditz like you, but I am a 10x genius”.

wait_a_minute 6y ago

Fine the real-estate billionaire owner until he fixes the problem in his apartments or is no longer a billionaire, and use the fines to clean it up and build new property. We desperately need a proper wealth tax and anti-NIMBY laws. Make more housing construction and super high-rise high-end apartments for all part of our infrastructure spending. It’s time.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
xyzzyz 6y ago
What if the owner is not a billionaire? You certainly don’t need to be one to own an apartment building, you probably don’t even need to be a multimillionaire, as you can finance the project on loans. Additionally, the building is probably owned by an LLC, so even if the owner of the LLC is a billionaire, you can’t fine him personally, and his billions are irrelevant.
- rtkwe 6y ago
  You need to have pretty significant assets to get a foot in the door to large buildings from what I've read these buildings are rarely the only collateral on the loan.
- lawwantsin17 6y ago
  You just know everything don't you? What are you the owner's son? Fuck your worthless arguments.
- scrose 6y ago
  Directly from the article: > The owner, Donald Bren, is reportedly worth $15.3 billion.
- titanomachy 6y ago
  Assuming he got rich by building this company, his billions in wealth would be mostly in the form of his ownership of the company. So not entirely irrelevant.

nynx 6y ago

There are quite a few people in the comments here trying to hint that this woman is mistaken somehow. This casual sexism is quite unfortunate.

kyberias 6y ago
How is it sexist?
- nynx 6y ago
  Because they wouldn't question it if the person in question was male. I've seen this pattern far too many times.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    That's nonsense. Please don't litter comments with the "everything is sexism"-stuff.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - kyberias 6y ago
    You don't know that to be true. I have questioned similar claims myself and many of the people have been male. Mostly women though.
  - sidlls 6y ago
    > Because they wouldn't question it if the person in question was male. You don't know that. This has become one of those ridiculous "truisms" that isn't necessarily true, at this point.
    - elliekelly 6y ago
      Or perhaps it is a “truism” with a long and repeatedly documented history of being true: https://www.rti.org/insights/myth-female-hysteria-and-health-disparities-among-women https://www.rti.org/insights/myth-female-hysteria-and-health...

whatsavoc 6y ago

It mentions she used various monitors to detect the VOcs. Anyone know of a decent reliable VOC monitor?

kawsper 6y ago
Awair Element: https://uk.getawair.com/home/element https://uk.getawair.com/home/element
- sydd 6y ago
  hmm I don't know how this one works, but I'd be very wary of devices that are not equipped by a sensor thats bulging out of the device or one with a fan moving the air into the sensor.
  - tekacs 6y ago
    It does have a fan that draws air in (I believe through the hole in the front). I’ve seen these and you can hear it running during operation.
thomasjudge 6y ago
There's several available for around $100 on Amazon. I have one, it is hard to know how accurate/complete it is with respect to VOC detection, I mainly use mine for PM10 detection during fire season, and it seems reasonably accurate in that it agrees with the state's readings

syntaxing 6y ago

I never would of though to check something like this. Interestingly, the EPA has a GIS API so I see a couple people make maps on ARCGIS. Definitely making something for my house purchase. [1] https://gispub.epa.gov/arcgis/rest/services/OEI/FRS_INTERESTS/MapServer/21 https://gispub.epa.gov/arcgis/rest/services/OEI/FRS_INTEREST...

dbsmith83 6y ago

I myself bought an air quality monitor, and am happy I did (uHoo). I have several gas appliances and was concerned about NOx and other possible gases. It turns out everything is about normal, except that CO2 levels in the basement tend to get elevated. I had no idea that this was something that happened. I now make sure to try and air it out down there once in a bit and take breaks more often, since that is where my office is set up.

c0nsumer 6y ago
I bought a CO2 meter for work, with the intention of taking it into (small) conference rooms once in a while to see what happened to the CO2 there. What I found surprised but pleased me: The CO2 levels at my desk are quite low, spike at night when HVAC is off (when the building is empty), but generally during daytime are about the same as being at home with windows open in a suburban area. Granted, it's been more than a year since I've sat at my desk... But still, it was nice to know.
paulryanrogers 6y ago
How reliable are those devices? Last I looked only the professional ones ($150+) could guarantee independently verified results. Consumer stuff often depended upon calibration and might vary wildly even between two different devices by the same manufacturer.
- dbsmith83 6y ago
  The one I have is from https://getuhoo.com/home https://getuhoo.com/home and was around $300. For CO2, it looks like resolution is 1 ppm with a tolerance of ±50 ppm or ±3% of reading (higher of the two). I can't speak to how well it is calibrated since you would need other devices to compare with.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

“Sick building syndrome” is a difficult topic to discuss because it’s very difficult to prove a connection between the vague symptoms and the building. In many cases, only a single person seems susceptible to the claimed building issues. In this case, the apartment complex appears to have over 1,800 units, which makes it surprising that only a single person is experiencing such dramatic effects. Unfortunately, doubting these people’s stories is taboo online so I’m going to tread carefully. However, when only 1 unit out of 1800 apartments (presumably 2000-3000 total residents considering multi-bedroom units) is experiencing severe and dramatic symptoms, my first guess would not be the soil under the foundation. I would be looking for building materials or chemical spills in that specific apartment unit. Also, I’m not suggesting that we discount this person’s story. Their symptoms are certainly very real in that they are suffering, but the selfie of the person wearing medical equipment in front of a mirror combined with measurements from consumer devices as evidence should be approached with caution. There is a relatively new phenomenon casually known as Munchausen by Internet where some patients are drawn to the increasing attention they can garner by sharing, and unfortunately exaggerating, their stories on the internet. These patients often post selfies of themselves wearing medical equipment, in doctor’s offices, or in hospital beds. More commonly, typical patients prefer not to be photographed with medical equipment or in medical facilities. Again, I’m not suggesting we disbelieve this person, but it’s important that we consider the bigger picture (1800 unit apartment complex, apparently only one case of severe symptoms?) before accepting a single person’s analysis of what is causing her issues. Mistaken “sick building syndrome” diagnoses can actually be very detrimental to patients who mistake other illnesses as being caused by their buildings, as they hyperfocus on their presumed explanation to the exclusion of following more typical diagnostic work ups that would help them eliminate more common explanations for those symptoms.

georgeam 6y ago
The article mentions that there is a 500 gallon tank of some toxic material buried at a unknown location in the property. 500 gallons is very small -- 66 cubic feet, which is about 4 ft by 4 ft by 4 ft. In my opinion, that makes it completely plausible that a problem relating to that tank could be so localized that it will only affect one tenant. I'm not saying her problem was due to the 500 gallon tank. All I'm saying is that if it is, then it is not unbelievable that it affected only one (or a small number) of tenants.

EMM_386 6y ago

I'm curious at what the VOCs were that were being measured by the home devices. Indoor VOCs can be caused by numerous common sources. Some of these would be common in a new development: - Paints/Coatings - Flooring - Furniture - Cleaners & Disinfectants Even though she states "I also noticed the tVOCs seemed to rise and fall at different times of the day when I was having the worst symptoms", this can be affected by things such as the rise and fall of the temperature in the indoor space, or even whether something as seemingly benign as candles are lit. I have no say in this either way, as it would require testing of other similar units and finding out if there are any specific VOC sources in her individual unit (did a room get painted recently)? When dealing with indoor VOC levels, it can get tricky.

dehrmann 6y ago
> Furniture That's a good point. The article dwells on the remediations done to the site that admittedly may not be effective, but didn't mention furniture in the unit. It could be her couch or a cleaner she's using.
- Sunspark 6y ago
  Molds emit VOCs which is also a possibility in some places. You might not be exposed to the spores directly, but the gases emitted by the growth travels through.
relax88 6y ago
This is a great point, I've heard of people purchasing a piece of furniture, getting wicked allergy symptoms/irriated airways, buying one of these tVOC meters, and finding out it's their chair/couch/etc. She got sick when she moved in? What new furniture did she buy?
- kevingadd 6y ago
  Yeah, I bought a tempurpedic mattress once and the off-gassing (which the salesman insisted wouldn't happen) obliterated my lungs for like a week. Could barely talk, had to sleep on the floor downstairs and leave the bedroom windows open the whole time to air it out.

iJohnDoe 6y ago

What a nightmare. When you’re sick, a lot of times your home is your safe place. You go home and crawl in bed and try to feel better. Imagine your safe place to feel better is causing you to become even sicker.

dehrmann 6y ago

> one of my neighbors at the same complex complained about blue tap water and paid for a private lab test showing “very high” levels of lead, copper and other contaminants in the water. That's weird, though "copper" could just be from the pipes, and it's probably unrelated to VOCs. The complex should be on city water, and all the pipes are new.

jeffbee 6y ago
Also copper is an essential trace element and the acceptable amount of copper in drinking water is quite high, 1.3 ppm. If that were the actual concentration of copper in this apartment's tap water, the pipes will be corroded through in no time. Anyway if a lab test shows more than 1.3 ppm of copper in drinking water then a tenant should, immediately, move to a hotel, stop paying the rent, and file a legal claim for loss of enjoyment plus the cost of temporary accommodation, which would be a slam-dunk of a suit.

amluto 6y ago

> The completion report said, “While not an environmental remedy, because there are no significant risks, a VIMS consisting of a vapor barrier and a sub-slab venting system has been designed and installed.” Installing these apparently could cost millions of dollars. It’s curious to me that Roux would plan to build four VIMS, or even build one, if they really thought VOCs were not an issue. That sounds awfully like the way that ordinary houses are constructed, especially anywhere with (naturally occurring!) radium in or under the soil. When one builds a house with a slab foundation, one first builds a capillary break (a bunch of rocks with no fines, perhaps — this is an air-permeable layer), then applies a vapor barrier (polyethylene sheets), then pours the slab directly on the vapor barrier. The only thing special about sub slab venting is a pipe from the capillary break to the roof that may or may not be fan assisted. The goal isn’t so much to remove gas from under the slab as to reduce the pressure under the slab below the pressure above the slab such that gas doesn’t intrude. All of this except the pipe is done regardless of soil gas concerns — water vapor coming through the slab destroys floor coverings. I know basically nothing about commercial construction, and I could easily believe that vapor barriers are optional under parking lots. Given that the VOCs in question are easily measurable in real time with a cheap sensor, it could be interesting to measure the VOCs at the lowest level of the parking lot over time. Some parking lots have CO (or CO2?) sensors that control exhaust fans. If there is less car activity at 3am, the fans could turn off, and that could have any number of effects. (Also, the author doesn’t seem to have tried to distinguish between gasses coming from the building and gasses coming from under or outside the building. There is no actual evidence I saw in the article that the problem is a problem with the site. Heck, a building air intake being contaminated by gasses from the parking lot could introduce a fair amount of CO and NOx even if the levels were too low to set off a CO alarm. Builders mess up the airflow in buildings all the time. Sadly, NOx sensors do not appear to be available at comparable prices to tVOC and CO sensors.

mint2 6y ago

Most people here seem concerned about vocs. Plastics, carpets, sofas, paints, air fresheners and a ton of other typical household items produce them. I feel like the author is really jumping the gun here in identifying the source of pollutants by not seeking to consider the fact that new apartments are loaded with freshly off-gassing materials. The other thing that should have been mentioned is more about their vitals prior to moving in. How confident was she in her baseline because it could be a preexisting condition that became very exacerbated. Edit: But that said, my opinion of the Irvine company is extremely low. I’d not be the least bit surprised if they willfully cut every corner they could. Either with remediation or materials in the apartment. And pollutants do pool overnight but near freeways they are typically the worst in the dawn hours. There would be less air exchange in the apartment, leading to a buildup from an external or internal source.

dosethree 5y ago
Typically you have doors and windows closed at night, so with reduced ventilation its typical for c02 or VOCs to spike. It must suck to live somewhere (LA?) where opening the windows doesn't help

jjjeii3 6y ago

Lucky, you are living in United States and not in Europe. In Germany, even if you successfully sue local authorities, you will get a tiny compensation like 1000 euro. Another example to show how bad Europe is: if you will be putted to jail by mistake in Germany, until recently you will only get 25 euro per day... In United States Craig Coley got 1400 $ for each day (the case was closed in 2019)! That's more than 50x the amount you can get in Germany. In Europe, your life worth nothing, just like in the north Korea.

ricardobayes 6y ago
Do you judge the 'goodness' of a country or a continent by the amounts paid for settlements? Why?
derriz 6y ago
That’s not the the case everywhere in Europe. This guy got over $2m for two years of wrongful imprisonment - https://www.irishtimes.com/news/shortt-awarded-1-9m-for-wrongful-imprisonment-1.1183470 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/shortt-awarded-1-9m-for-wron...

evan_ 6y ago

I’m interested in the 3:00am spike shown on the monitors and her physical response. Could the building’s HVAC be programmed to turn on (or off) at that time?

walterbell 6y ago

Are there good open-source components for air quality monitoring, e.g multiple sensors that work with a common software platform, for continuous data collection and analysis? Ideally something that works with low-cost boards like ESP32.

jfim 6y ago
Not that I'm aware of, but it's actually pretty easy to build one from off the shelf parts (ESP8266, Plantower PMSA003, Sensirion SHT31, Sensirion SGP30, Senseair S8), which was my pet project during the pandemic. Basic soldering skills required, but otherwise nothing really complicated about it. I can write something about it if there's any interest.
- mellavora 6y ago
  I've had good support from airgradient (https://www.airgradient.com/blog/2020/08/25/the-airgradient-diy-sensor/ https://www.airgradient.com/blog/2020/08/25/the-airgradient-...) The linked DIY instructions give you a basic board with PM 2.5 particles, temp, humidity, and CO2. It is built on a Wemos D1 mini. The founder (Achim) is very helpful. If you wanted to use these plans to get started (including the software to power the Wemos), then buy whatever additional sensors you might like to add, it should be fairly simple.
  - jfim 6y ago
    The BOM is similar but it's not very compact. I have yet to 3D print a case for mine and get the PCB manufactured, but the dimensions for it are roughly 1"x1"x2" assembled, when not on a breadboard.
- walterbell 6y ago
  > I can write something about it if there's any interest That would be great. https://sigrok.org/ https://sigrok.org/ can log data from basic CO2 monitors, maybe it could be extended to support the sensors you mentioned.

Aboh33 6y ago

Some years back I signed a lease in a luxury apartment hi-rise in downtown Chicago. The complex had been an add-on to an existing shopping center and mall. Long story short, the apartment smelled like old grease and trash often, and I could never trace the exact source as it would come and go. No matter how many air filtration units I installed, or odor absorbing devices, the odors would still collect and infiltrate my clothing and furniture. Again, it wasn't constant but regular enough for me not to stay there very often. I ended up caulking the entire apartment with clear caulk and sealing any air gaps. Because the hi-rise was pressurized like most hi-rises, I concluded somehow this was drawing up smells from grease traps etc. Of course I could never prove it. My conclusion is that most of these buildings are so cheaply and poorly made that I will never again rent a unit like this. Too bad I spent 30k on the lease and hardly ever stayed there. So the woman's experience seems pretty plausible to me.

crocsarecool 6y ago
I’m surprised she didn’t try to escape from her apartment like you did. She mentions sleeping outside on an occasion, but that’s about it. I think I would have paid some money to go to a hotel, stay with a friend, grab an AirBnB someplace just to figure out if my symptoms went away. The things she was experiencing sounded just horrible.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  The difficulty there is if you believe your home is making you sick, you’re quite likely to feel more at ease and sleep better in another place. Or you’re sleeping away from all your new furnishings and the building materials which are off-gassing. So, you get a datapoint that’s better, but what do you do with it?
kevin_nisbet 6y ago
> I ended up caulking the entire apartment with clear caulk and sealing any air gaps. Because the hi-rise was pressurized like most hi-rises, I concluded somehow this was drawing up smells from grease traps etc. I would be cautious of taking actions like these as it can have some pretty bad knock on effects. I'm on the board of my condo corporation for a high rise in Canada and we have seen topics like this come up from time to time. To help control odour between units, the air handling system in our building is designed to draw air into the hallways, from the hallways to the units, to outside. The idea of routing airflow like this is to try and prevent smell transfer between units, but the airflow also has a purpose to help control moisture buildup, which IIRC gets worse if there is no airflow, and can lead to mold. So we discourage blocking the airflow from the way the building was designed, and property management has advised us in other buildings this had been observed to lead to severe moisture problems. And we have had issue pop up with trash smell and the like. Where that's happened to us is two causes, there is a sort of air damper on the garbage chute, and it's gotten jammed on us IIRC. The other is our garbage room opens to take the bins out, and if the doors are left open for an extended period and the wind hits the building right it can draw air through the garbage room and through the chute. This can also occur when folks leave their trash blocking the chute door open allowing more air to flow between the chute and hallways. Stuff like that can be hard to figure out, because if the garbage room is left open every day, it doesn't always happen due to the wind or possibly other factors. The third one we get sometimes is smoking smells, which is usually caused by a smoker not wanting to use their balcony in winter, so instead they go into the stairwells. We traced one of those across more than 20 floors once. It can be difficult to trace those ones, so it comes with a lot of sending broadcast messages and work to trace down. I get not all property managers are super helpful, but if they get a few reports from different individuals and can link it to some action like having the garbage room open can hopefully have them solve the real problem.

floatingatoll 6y ago

As a reminder to SFbay folks, if you’re near a local waterway and you smell a strong smell of vanilla cupcakes, you might be breathing an industrial toxin that leached from a local superfund site. (Don’t panic, it won’t kill you quickly!) It’s unfortunate that her VOCs were odorless because if they were cupcake-odored there wouldn’t have been any argument.

titanomachy 6y ago
Immediately made me think of the 30 Rock maple syrup thing: https://youtu.be/OgjXSWsE5Es?t=27 https://youtu.be/OgjXSWsE5Es?t=27

kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago

This is fucking crazy, but also peak San Fransisco. Can't say I am surprised. I just do not understand how people live in that crazy bubble.

microtherion 6y ago
It's so peak San Francisco that it happened 50 miles from San Francisco…
- kjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 6y ago
  That area is all the same thing

m0llusk 6y ago

Kind of interesting how similar this is to other serious problems with vinyl chloride in Silicon Valley. Also kind of interesting that so many sofa based contamination engineers here didn't bother to investigate any of that. HN has a really serious problem with people who have a weak grasp of complex subjects carrying on like what they say relates to anything.

freetime2 6y ago
Can you provide a link with more info about the similar vinyl chloride issues?

almost_usual 6y ago

Living near the Bay is a risk. Landfill sites, chemicals, radioactivity, earthquake shaking intensity, liquefaction, and tsunami risk. Any Bay Area native will tell you living near the Bay is a bad idea. Unfortunately this is where the poor typically live.

runjake 6y ago

There are a lot of armchair scientists touting their ill-informed theories, such as “she lives on the 3rd floor” and “she just passes a lot of gas”. Building are complex structures with numerous pathways and extensive air flow channels that harmful chemicals could pass through or get blown. Often, airflow equipment is in the basement or first floor, blowing air throughout a building. The best way to handle this is to 1) stop the pseudo-scientific babble, and 2) perform scientific measurements of the air quality by qualified professionals. From the article, it looks like she is doing her best to quantify her health issues and to get scientific help. What’s wrong with that?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
freetime2 6y ago
There have absolutely been cases where well-meaning people on the internet have caused harm by latching on to a pseudo-scientific explanation for an unexplained illness. I’m thinking of anti-vaxxers, chronic lyme disease, etc. I think it’s commendable that the author is trying to quantify her health issues, but I also don’t think she makes a very strong case that the cause is toxic waste in the ground as opposed to some other issue. It is irresponsible in my opinion for her to write an article titled “I thought I was dying: My apartment was built on toxic waste” without more concrete evidence. If she is wrong, this could cause undue panic and suffering for other residents in the area, as well as monetary damages to the building’s owner. Of course there is also the possibility that she is right, too. But given the severity of her symptoms, and the number of residents in the complex, I would expect to see more people showing up at local hospitals with similar issues. I think the correct course of action for a person in this situation would basically be to report the issue to local health authorities and the building’s management, and move out as soon as possible.

raychail10 6y ago

All you internet trolls that have nothing to do to criticize this article need a wake up call. Did you not read anything about how Irvine Co seemed super sketch about the whole thing, refused to investigate, and made retaliatory threats?! Of course no one else would push this through! In my opinion, this girl is a complete badass fighting for answers and instead of criticizing her we ought to share this information so it can be properly investigated. For all of you writing these idiot comments, just think about if you were in her shoes. Instead of victim blaming, how about we get alongside her and try to find answers.

spicyramen 6y ago
Do you know about the Orchard Hills case and The AAA plan in Irvine, interesting one https://www.cityofirvine.org/community-development/all-american-asphalt-update https://www.cityofirvine.org/community-development/all-ameri...

xivzgrev 6y ago

This story is very plausible. Just look at the Shipyard condos in San Francisco. They had a cleanup, and apparently some parts of cleanup were fraudulent. So residents are suing. https://www.cpmlegal.com/news-Hunters-Point-Shipyard-homeowners-announce-lawsuit-against-developer-say-we-were-duped https://www.cpmlegal.com/news-Hunters-Point-Shipyard-homeown...

SigmaEpsilonChi 6y ago

Compelling article. Definitely raises real problems deserving of scrutiny; technical, legal, and administrative. I was a little bothered that this is just a direct reprinting of a single (admittedly deep and well-rounded) anecdotal experience, with no input from subject matter experts or independent attempts to contact other tenants. I sent the article to a friend who’s a hydrogeologist and environmental remediation consultant. Basically, the guy that cleanup companies send to assess these sites, take samples, and make remediation plans. His hot take: “Based on the info in the article alone I’d be very surprised if soil or groundwater VOCs were getting into her unit in concentrations high enough to cause acute health effects. Sounds like there’s a vapor venting system installed which in my experience alleviates all indoor air concerns. It could be that it exhausts near her window or something and concentrates in her apartment, but that would be a design/architectural issue more than an environmental issue per se. My initial suspicion would be that she bought cheap furniture or there’s cheap carpets or something that are offgassing VOCs.” A quick read from a single expert isn’t enough to draw conclusions, but I do wish the paper had bothered to seek that kind of input before publishing. Whatever the cause of this person’s symptoms may be, inadequate environmental remediation is a very real problem that deserves our concern. I wish the comments in this thread focused more on that. Instead the primary debate is whether a single person with apparently serious symptoms but no expertise, resources, or authority made the right technical call after being ignored by the people with all the expertise, resources, and authority. IMO that is the real story here: a person bought (a) furnishing for (b) a condo on a plot of (c) remediated land, experienced a health crisis, and the relevant parties (that she’s paying rent and taxes to!) all seem to have ghosted her instead of investigating which of those 3 things was the problem. After an experience like that, how could you blame her for doing her best to collect evidence and draw her own conclusions? Even if the cause she identified is wrong, it’s not imagined. This isn’t “cancer from cell towers” or “migraines from wind turbines”. You just won’t read an article from the victims of industrial pollution in Bayview/Hunter’s Point.

princekolt 6y ago
She mentions her vitals returned to normal after moving away, and presumably she took her furniture when she moved, so it seems unlikely it’s caused by that.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dhekir 6y ago

This echoes some vibes of Neal Stephenson's Zodiac. Replace Boston with The Bay, PCBs with VOCs, and fast-forward some 30 years, and there you have it. If only we could learn from past mistakes...

highenergystar 6y ago

I don't see it mentioned here, but I wonder if the trees around the apartment are transpiring the vocs that are absorbed from the (potentially) contaminated water. That would be a way these vocs reach her 3rd floor apt, and also may be why her particular apartment is affected more than others.in the building (proximity to a particular tree?)

heohk 6y ago

I'd bet big bucks it's not the contaminated soil but instead VOCs from cure-in-place plumbing

spicyramen 6y ago

There is an interesting case in Irvine, CA. There's an Asphalt plant which has been operating since 1993. (All American Asphalt company). Few years ago, the City of Irvine approved residential within 1-2 miles of this plant. The area is called Orchard Hills, houses from 1-3M USD. There is an ongoing investigation from UCI, City of Irvine, residents and government air quality control agency as many people reports strong asphalt smell and high VoC. Worth following https://www.cityofirvine.org/community-development/all-american-asphalt-update https://www.cityofirvine.org/community-development/all-ameri...

gedy 6y ago
Isn't this though the stereotypical NIMBY nonsense of people knowingly moving into area with existing industry or agricultural, then complaining about smells, etc? Or worse, bulldozing bare land for their housing subdivisions, then complaining about the "environment.

anonuser123456 6y ago

As someone who has previously experienced a somatoform disorder, this sounds a lot like a somatoform disorder.