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Interviews and Writings Yuanzhi
In recent years, there have been frequent bloggers on the Internet who broke the news, saying that after staying in hardcover rental houses, they became very susceptible to illness, and had symptoms such as cough, drowsiness, and fatigue, so the phenomenon of "string rooms" has received widespread attention.
"Kushi" is originally a Chongqing dialect, with the meaning of brokers and brokers, "Kushiwoon" refers to the speculation of tenants to buy old houses or rough houses at low prices, decorate the house in an extremely cost-saving way, and then rent and sell it at a high price as a refined house to maximize the price difference, because the house has a very high content of harmful substances such as formaldehyde, it is also known as "leukemia suite".
Posts on social platforms about "string rooms" sparked heated discussions Image source network
Xiao Zhang, 32, is a formaldehyde testing worker in Shenzhen. Since the news of "string houses" was exposed, his work orders have skyrocketed overnight, and most of his customers are young people who rent houses in Shenzhen. In the process of door-to-door service, Xiaozhang found that many people lack basic understanding of the hazards of formaldehyde, and there are not a few families who are deeply harmed by the harm of "string houses".
According to the 2023 Blue Book on the Development of China's Urban Long-Term Rental Market, there are nearly 260 million renters in China. How to avoid renting a "string room"? How can we protect ourselves from formaldehyde in our daily lives?
The following is based on the description of the chapter.
Fatal "string room"
My name is Xiao Zhang, 32 years old this year, my hometown is in Luoyang, Henan, and I currently work in a formaldehyde testing agency in Shenzhen, doing formaldehyde door-to-door testing services.
I've been doing this for more than five years. For a long time in the past, our testing was mainly for companies, hotels, factories and newly renovated houses, and there were very few renters who were willing to do formaldehyde testing.
But those of us who do this industry know that rental houses are the hardest hit areas with excessive formaldehyde. Especially in a big city like Shenzhen, where the population density is high and the demand for rental housing is high, many houses in urban villages have been renovated at low cost by the landlord or second landlord - pasting inferior wallpaper, hanging color-blocked curtains, and placing cheap new furniture, it has become a hardcover apartment in the style of Internet celebrity decoration, commonly known as "string room".
The common "skewer room" | Image source network
Compared with other first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, the rental price in Shenzhen is more affordable, and you can rent a hardcover studio in the center of the city for a monthly rent of 2,500 yuan. Therefore, many young people who work hard in Shenzhen are very willing to spend this money to rent a new and beautiful house to improve their living experience.
At the beginning of 2023, a large number of bloggers on the short video platform suddenly broke the news, saying that they were unwell after renting a "string room" with excessive formaldehyde. The formaldehyde problem in rental housing has finally aroused public discussion and attention, and my workload has skyrocketed, and orders from rental parties have been endless.
I have been running non-stop to rental houses in different areas of Shenzhen every day, and I have found that there are not a few people who are deeply harmed by "string houses".
I met a young couple who had been struggling in Shenzhen for eight years and managed to scrape together enough for a down payment, buy a new house, and prepare to get pregnant and have a baby. While waiting for the renovation of the new house, the couple rented a hardcover apartment nearby, and in just four months, his wife Xiao Zheng had two miscarriages. After going to the hospital for examination, the doctor asked about the details of their life and suspected that the formaldehyde concentration in the living space might be excessive.
When I came to the rental house of Xiao Zheng and his wife, the front hall of this hardcover apartment was still being renovated. As soon as I entered the building, I smelled a pungent stench. It is important to know that low concentrations of formaldehyde are close to odorless and difficult to detect, and only after reaching a certain concentration will there be a little pungent odor. With such a pungent smell, you can imagine how high the formaldehyde concentration is in the front hall of the apartment.
And when I got to the floor where they lived, I smelled a strong fragrance, not like the smell of hotel aromatherapy, but more like essence. Xiao Zheng opened the door, the fragrance in the room is also similar to the corridor, the house has a wooden floor, there are pieces of wooden cabinets, the furniture is cream-colored log style, and the living room is also placed with a small upholstered sofa and fake flower potted plants common in B&Bs.
I could tell at a glance that this was a typical "string room". "String room" usually has several characteristics: one is new decoration, the second is the Internet celebrity ins style, and the third is the brand-new miscellaneous furniture. Many rooms also have a pungent scent – some hosts place perfumed decorations around the room or apply perfumes directly to the furniture to mask the smell of formaldehyde.
The "string room" that I encountered at work that didn't even have a window | Source: Interviewee
Formaldehyde is listed as a Class 1 carcinogen by the World Health Organization, and long-term exposure may cause leukemia, and the harm to the human body is needless to say.
I once served a family of three, and I was very impressed. It was summer, and when I went to the door, the whole family was wearing thick protective clothing, and it was raining heavily outside the window, and the family lived on the 18th floor, and they actually opened all the windows in the house, and the wind mixed with the rain hit my face, making me almost unable to breathe.
I couldn't do it because the test had to be done 24 hours after the house was sealed, so they were willing to close the windows and wait for the next day to re-test. I noticed that as soon as the window was closed, the child's mother hid outside the door with the child in her arms.
In fact, we have been working for a long time, and some houses know whether formaldehyde exceeds the standard at a glance. When I entered the door, I knew that the house was safe, because most of the furniture was made of stainless steel, even the sofas were padded with a quilt on a crafted iron frame, and the soft furnishings in the house were almost not wood.
I was really curious about the strange behavior of the family, so I asked the man and learned that the couple had opened a breakfast shop in Shenzhen for 20 years, and the family originally had two sons. A few years ago, in order to make their eldest son better prepare for the college entrance examination, the couple specially brought their children from their hometown in Guizhou to Shenzhen to attend high school. Because the school is far away from home, the couple also rented a well-decorated house for their children to live alone.
As a result, in the third year of high school, the eldest son was infected with leukemia, the disease was menacing, and after chemotherapy, he was successfully matched with his father's bone marrow, and the house was sold for surgery, and the store was closed.
The death of the eldest son was a devastation to the family. Especially the mother of the child, almost to the point where the grass and trees are all soldiers, from now on you can not see wood in the house, and the windows must be fully open. Excessive precautions also made them unable to live a normal life, and later learned that formaldehyde testing is a service, and every time you rent a house, you must go through a door-to-door test before you dare to move in with confidence.
Circumvent the trap of "string room".
In the process of work, I found that there is no fixed way to distinguish today's "string room", and there are many tricks, which makes people unguardable.
My family is also renting a house in Shenzhen, and I personally recommend renting a self-built house for locals, which is the kind of house with pink floor tiles, white walls on all sides, and a bed made of bamboo and wood. Such a house, although basic, has the least risk.
As for the hardcover room, it is not impossible to choose, but you must keep your eyes open, especially to check the safety of the furniture. Formaldehyde is mainly emitted by all kinds of inferior furniture, and tenants can ask the landlord to see the "ten-ring certification" of the furniture.
"Ten Ring Certification" is the highest level and most authoritative environmental protection product certification in China, issued by the State Environmental Protection Administration, which can prove the low toxicity and harmlessness of furniture. Moreover, the newly renovated house must be ventilated for at least half a year before it can be occupied, and the larger the area, the more the ventilation time should be extended later.
After the "string houses" were exposed last year, it triggered a collective panic among the rental parties, and many "old and dilapidated children" in Shenzhen ushered in a sharp rise in rents. But I would like to remind everyone that "old and small" are not 100% safe.
The release time of formaldehyde is 3-15 years, and many "old and dilapidated" people with cheap rents use inferior furniture at the beginning, even if they live in for many years, formaldehyde has not been completely released. In addition, the wallpaper is also a part that needs to be paid attention to. In order to cover up the moldy and dirty walls, some landlords use cheap adhesive wallpaper on a large area, and the problem of excessive formaldehyde cannot be underestimated.
I remember when I went to the family of three for testing, I saw that the corners of their house were full of green plants and formaldehyde fresheners, and the man told me that they had almost bought all the "good things to remove formaldehyde" recommended by online bloggers.
But as a practitioner, I regret to tell you that 90% of formaldehyde products on the market are IQ taxes, and the effect is not as good as directly opening the window for ventilation, or buying two large rows of fans, and blowing them outside the door and window all the time.
Formaldehyde test card with a large error on the market | Source: Interviewee
Most of the truly effective formaldehyde removal products will not be sold separately, but will be bundled with companies that provide formaldehyde removal services. Moreover, the process of removing formaldehyde is complex, and it is necessary to use the corresponding products with professional equipment according to the material of the furniture to have an effect.
Because of this, the price of formal formaldehyde removal services is not cheap. Taking 25 square meters as a point, Shenzhen has CMA (Inspection and Testing Agency Qualification) certified institutions to do formaldehyde testing and aldehyde removal, with an average price of about 800 yuan per point. Suppose this is a 100-square-meter house, and it costs more than 3,000 yuan to remove aldehydes from the whole house, which is too cost-effective for renters.
So, instead of trying to get rid of aldehydes, I recommend avoiding rental homes with excessive formaldehyde in the first place. If it is difficult to judge from the appearance of the house, you can also find a formaldehyde testing agency to do door-to-door testing. If the test result exceeds the standard, you should move out as soon as possible for the sake of your own health.
However, it should be noted that there are now mixed formaldehyde testing institutions on the market, and many consumers will fall into the scam of "cheap testing". If you see words such as "free door-to-door testing", "199 yuan detection and aldehyde removal all-inclusive", and "check-in on the same day after treatment" when you swipe your mobile phone, it is recommended that you decisively row away, there is no good thing in the sky, and formaldehyde can not be removed overnight.
Irregular test report | Source: Interviewee
When choosing a testing agency, you should pay attention to whether the institution has a CMA certification seal, otherwise even if the test is done, the report issued is invalid evidence, which is not conducive to finding the landlord to protect your rights in the future.
Formal test report with CMA mark | Source: Interviewee
Since formaldehyde mainly enters the human body through respiratory contact with the skin, out of the protection of their own health, the staff of formal testing institutions will wear work clothes and protective masks when they come to service, which is also a small skill to distinguish whether the institution is professional or not.
The difficult road to defending rights
In the past two years, I have witnessed the difficult road of defending the rights of many victims of "string houses".
I have a client named Xiaoyi, who rented a single room in Shenzhen after graduating from university, with a monthly rent of 2,300 yuan. Although this price is much more expensive than a single room in the same location, it is beautifully decorated, and Xiaoyi is willing to pay.
However, after living for a while, Xiaoyi found that she always had a cough and headache, and she didn't get better after taking medicine, so she paid for a door-to-door test. A test found that the formaldehyde concentration in the room was 0.2mg/m³, and the formaldehyde concentration greater than 0.08mg/m³ was considered to be exceeded.
The landlord of this house is an acquaintance introduced by Xiaoyi's friend, Xiaoyi didn't leave any eyes when renting the house, and felt that the landlord was a sincere person, so he happily transferred the deposit and rent, and didn't even sign the contract. After the problem was found, the follow-up compensation could not be negotiated because of the lack of a contract.
However, even if there is a rental contract, the road to rights protection is also bumpy. After the test results came out, the formaldehyde content in the bedroom was 0.25mg/m³ and the living room was 0.17mg/m³, all of which exceeded the standard. But the landlord did not admit the account, and the two sides pulled back and forth, Xiao Zheng had to ask the consumer association for help, and after many negotiations, the landlord was still unwilling to compensate. In the end, Xiao Zheng and his wife had no choice but to sue, and after a long wait, they were physically and mentally exhausted before they received several thousand yuan in compensation.
Xiao Zheng told me: "I was holding the test report at the time, thinking that one would be the right one, but I didn't expect that the process of defending rights would be so complicated. The parties to this matter are not only me and the landlord, but I also need to confront the landlord, the agent, the renovation company and other entities one by one. Many times I wanted to give up, but when I thought about my two children who should have been born healthy, I gritted my teeth and thought that I must persevere. Someone has to do it first, and that person can be someone else or me. ”
Because of the high cost of evidence collection, many people are involved in the process of housing from decoration to rental, and it also takes time to fight a lawsuit, so many people give up in the middle of defending their rights.
Even if a more vigilant tenant successfully defends his rights, and as soon as he leaves, the black-hearted landlord puts the house on the platform and rents it out again, and new victims are still being generated.
My friend Annie is a freelance real estate agent and the toughest person I've ever met. He himself is allergic to formaldehyde, and he hates the "string room" even more. Before recommending a house to a customer, he will personally evaluate it, and if he is allergic, he will post a circle of friends, with a picture of his blue nose and swollen face and a photo and mark, "XX community, X building X room is renting, out!" ”
His behavior caused many landlords to blacklist him, and his peers also thought he was stupid, saying that he couldn't make money like this, and he also paid for medical expenses in vain. But Anie said, "I want to make sure that my guests can live in the house I recommend with peace of mind."
Annie's persistence is admirable, but it is still a drop in the bucket for the chaos in the industry. I think the fundamental solution is to strengthen the supervision of the rental market by the relevant departments, if there are clear regulations in the future, requiring rental houses to pass the air quality test, qualified before they can be listed for rent, for rental houses that have been rented but formaldehyde exceeds the standard, the landlord should immediately rectify, or impose a fine, to protect the life and health of renters, I believe that the accident of "string houses" will also be greatly reduced.
As a practitioner, in addition to doing my job well, I will also try to share knowledge related to formaldehyde with customers when I come to the door.
A small chapter at work | Source: Interviewee
In fact, in addition to inferior furniture, there are many objects in daily life, such as plush toys, children's toys, cheap clothes and carpets, etc., which are prone to excessive formaldehyde.
Like the entertainment project "catching dolls", which young people like very much, they grab a big bag every time and pile them on the bed to make decorations, which they think are very cute, and some people will sleep with dolls. However, many of these dolls lack 3C certification, which is a three-no product, and the cost of materials is extremely low.
In the production process of plush toys, the dyes, fixing agents, and adhesives used in the fabric may contain formaldehyde; Even if the formaldehyde of some raw materials does not exceed the standard, after assembly, the cumulative formaldehyde of the whole product exceeds the standard. Therefore, whether it is a doll bought from a specialty store or a doll caught from a doll machine, do not use it without a certificate of conformity and 3C certification. This principle also applies to clothing.
In our line of work, it is not uncommon to be misunderstood. Many people still have stereotypes about door-to-door testing of formaldehyde and aldehyde removal, and "liars" and "making money" are the most bad comments I have heard about our industry.
I once visited a family to serve a family, and when I was carefully testing, the male owner of the family sneered at me, "Your job is very profitable, right?" We make a few hundred by fiddling with things, and we only earn a little bit by working hard." I talked to them about the dangers of formaldehyde, and he shouted, "Oh, don't talk nonsense, don't you just want to deduct more money?" Let's go! ”
A small chapter at work | Source: Interviewee
Every time I hear that, my heart feels bad. But the next time I come to the door, I will still do my best to nag two more words, I believe that someone will always listen, maybe because of my reminder, there will be a family to avoid the "string house" pit.
I don't have much culture, so I can't make a big sense. I only know that "don't make money, don't do bad things" is my insistence and my attitude towards this job.
(Excerpted from the WeChat public account Ten Point Character Chronicles)