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When Lin Wei, born in the 2000s, accidentally saw a video on how to identify a room-sharing apartment on his phone, he was so scared that he sat on the sofa. The room-sharing apartment in the video, which the blogger called the "leukemia suite", was almost identical to the apartment he had just rented, whether in terms of decoration style, furniture, or even curtains and chandeliers.

After watching many similar videos, Lin Wei felt a chill in his heart: he had rented a room with multiple people. "I am now negotiating with the landlord and the agent to see how to resolve this situation." Lin Wei was very angry. "I definitely don't dare to live here anymore. I feel like I could get sick at any time."

The rental market in early July became lively with the influx of graduates. However, compared with the traditional and old houses, young people who have just entered the society undoubtedly hope to rent a house that is more in line with their inner aesthetics. Little do they know that it is this mentality that makes them fall into the trap of unscrupulous landlords and agents seeking profits.

Beijing News Shell Finance reporter learned that Chuanchuan House refers to landlords or agents renovating old houses in an extremely cost-saving way, and then renting and selling them as fine-decorated houses at high prices. Although these houses attract waves of young people with their exquisite decoration, almost new furniture and fashionable decoration styles, the poor quality of the materials used has led to serious excess of harmful substances such as formaldehyde and benzene in the rooms, gradually becoming "virus houses" that endanger the health of tenants.

How to avoid renting a room with multiple guests and protect one's own interests has become a concern for many young people.

Renting a house causes formaldehyde anxiety

"I just want to rent a house. I don't want to sacrifice my health!" Looking at the excessive results shown by the formaldehyde detection kit in his hand, Lin Wei was extremely angry.

A few months ago, Lin Wei moved to Zhejiang due to a job change. When he first arrived, he selected an apartment through an agency. "At that time, I felt that although the location was average and the price was slightly higher than my psychological expectations, the Nordic-style decoration of the house and the almost new furniture were exactly what I imagined."

Soon after Lin Wei excitedly moved into the apartment, he began to experience headaches and respiratory allergies. He originally thought that he was just suffering from the unfamiliar climate in the new city, but after watching videos of room visits and comparing his symptoms with the harm of formaldehyde to the body, he realized that he seemed to have been infected.

When he saw the results of the formaldehyde detection kit after testing, he was more convinced of this idea: "The detection agent determines the amount of formaldehyde residue by the color of the liquid. A lighter color proves that the amount of formaldehyde residue is lighter, and the color I measured is already dark purple!"

Lin Wei's experience is not an isolated case. Earlier, a news report about a tenant who developed acute leukemia due to renting a house attracted attention and discussion, and many speculated that it was due to room-hopping. Tenants with similar experiences have revealed their experiences: some had sore throats and difficulty breathing after moving in; some experienced nausea and hair loss; and some had lived in the house for more than a year, but after testing, it was found that the formaldehyde residue was still above the standard.

The so-called "Chuanchuan House" refers to a house that a real estate company or agency buys at a low price from a "old, dilapidated and small" house, renovates it with inferior materials, and then rents it out as a high-quality house. Although the decoration style of such houses caters to the preferences of young people, the low-quality furniture used in the home decoration contains extremely high levels of formaldehyde, benzene and other harmful substances, which can easily cause damage to the health of the residents.

"The agent took me to see several houses before, and found that they all met the characteristics of the online 'house-hopping'." A young man told Shell Finance reporter that he smelled a pungent smell as soon as he entered the house. When she asked the agent whether she could temporarily not sign the contract and find a professional organization to conduct formaldehyde testing, the agent replied coldly on the spot: "Forget it if you don't want to rent it."

Formaldehyde anxiety keeps many young people awake at night. In order to determine whether they have rented a string house, they began to search for relevant information. On social platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin, many netizens posted photos of their rented houses to seek answers. Some even summarized methods to identify string houses, such as "color-blocked curtains, colored walls, gray glossy floor tiles, and white board furniture, these elements together basically "hit the mark" and "the decoration looks very new, but the home appliances are all unknown brands", etc., to help young people prepare rental strategies in advance.

Hidden business secrets: 40,000 yuan "fine decoration" packaged to 4,500 yuan high rent

"Even if young people are fully prepared, it is difficult to escape from the practice of room-hopping. After all, this group has limited financial resources and prefers fashionable decoration styles, so they are easily attracted by room-hopping." Tang Ling, who works as a real estate agent, said frankly, "More importantly, the profits behind it are much higher than those of normal houses. This is also the main channel for many real estate agencies and sub-landlords to make profits."

Tang Ling told Shell Finance that ChuanChuan houses have always been hidden in the market, but their scale has become larger in the past two years. Now that the property market is down, more and more homeowners are turning their attention to the rental market.

Having worked in real estate agency for many years, Tang Ling knows that apartments, resettlement houses and urban villages are usually the hardest hit areas for house-hopping, which happens to be the most popular types of houses for young people with limited funds. In order to rent out the house quickly, the owner or the real estate agent usually renovates the house, but for cost considerations, they mostly use the cheapest decoration materials and furniture.

Tang Ling once did some calculations. If an apartment with an area of ​​about 50 square meters is decorated in the Nordic style popular among young people, it usually only requires painting the walls, adding light-colored furniture and soft furnishings, and renovating the bathroom. The renovation can be completed with only about 40,000 yuan.

In contrast, renovated houses can usually be rented out at 30% to 50% higher than the original price. Taking the above apartment as an example, the original rent was 3,000 yuan, but after renovation it can be rented out at 4,500 yuan. Based on this calculation, it only takes 2 years to recover the investment.

"Usually the renovation period for rental housing is five years, which means that a landlord who originally could only earn 180,000 yuan in rent can now earn 270,000 yuan after renovation. Even after deducting 40,000 yuan in renovation costs, he can still earn an extra 50,000 yuan," said Tang Ling.

Lao He, who also worked in a real estate agency for many years, also said that the renovation period of Chuan Chuan House is very short, usually 15 days or 1 month to complete, and the renovation cost is mostly only tens of thousands of yuan. "After all, both the home decoration and furniture are inferior products. The landlord is looking for a quick profit. In order to shorten the vacancy period of the house, many landlords even only ventilate the house for a short time after renovation and rent it out without considering the health of the tenants at all."

"The reason why Chuanchuanfang can survive in the market is that it caters to young people's desire to rent their favorite houses at low prices." When Lao He was leading a young tenant to look at houses earlier, he noticed that between the "old, dilapidated and small" house he recommended and the one with a Nordic Internet celebrity style, the tenant chose the latter without hesitation. Even though he took the initiative to remind the tenant that there might be excessive formaldehyde, the tenant was still tempted. "Young people's preferences naturally give some bad landlords and agents an opportunity to take advantage of it, and also allow Chuanchuanfang to continue to appear in the market."

Shell Finance reporters visited several offline rental agencies and visited several properties under their guidance. They noticed that most of these properties met the "standard configuration of string houses" published by netizens. The furniture and appliances looked brand new, and even the plastic film on the bed and mattress was not torn off. However, a closer look revealed that many of the decoration details were not exquisite, and most of the furniture was made of board material, and the appliances were all unknown small brands.

When the Shell Finance reporter asked, "Can you show the formaldehyde test report?", the agent did not respond directly, but repeatedly emphasized that the house had been vacant for several months and it was impossible for the formaldehyde to exceed the standard. When asked, "Can it be stated in the contract that the rent and deposit can be fully refunded if the formaldehyde exceeds the standard?", the agent said that they needed to communicate with the landlord. There was no further news after that.

"Compared to traditional houses with old decoration, Chuanchuanfang relies on its seemingly exquisite decoration to attract young people who are unaware of the truth." Lao He said, "For landlords and agents, Chuanchuanfang not only has no shortage of customers, but also has guaranteed rent and commission, so they are naturally happy to recommend this type of house. After all, in this three-party relationship, the only one who really suffers is the tenant."

Testing is expensive and it is difficult to cancel the lease. The responsibility of "stepping into traps" in visiting other rooms still needs to be strengthened.

Lin Wei, who was infected, contacted the agent to cancel the lease and hoped to compensate for the losses during the rental period. However, even after he showed the test results, the agent insisted that there was no problem with the house.

"Nowadays, when young people suspect that they have rented a room with a problem, they usually choose to buy a formaldehyde test kit or find a professional agency to conduct testing to determine whether there are any problems with the house," said Lao He.

Shell Finance reporters searched on e-commerce platforms and found that there are about a hundred stores selling products such as "bamboo charcoal bags" and "formaldehyde test kits", among which many stores have sold more than 100,000 orders. A store owner said that the customers who come to buy similar products are basically young people, and more than half of them are young people who rent houses.

Although young people use various methods to prove that the formaldehyde content in the house exceeds the standard, most landlords and agents do not recognize this result, and will not easily make compensation such as termination of lease.

"Landlords usually do not accept the results of formaldehyde test strips or home formaldehyde detectors purchased by tenants. They will ask the tenants to provide a credible test report issued by a professional testing team." Tang Ling told Shell Finance that in ordinary formaldehyde testing, the test fee for one point is 100 yuan, and a room needs to test at least three points, and it costs 300 yuan to test only one room. If a CMA agency is required to issue a nationally recognized third-party report, the cost will be more expensive, about 500 yuan per point, and at least two points must be tested.

This means that even for an ordinary "old and dilapidated" house or apartment, the cost of formaldehyde testing may be thousands of yuan.

"The landlord is naturally unwilling to pay this fee, and the tenant is also unwilling to bear it." After learning that the other party required him to show the results of the agency's test, Lin Wei argued with the landlord for several days about who should pay. In the end, the two parties agreed that "Lin Wei will pay first, and the landlord will reimburse after it is proven that there is indeed a formaldehyde problem in the house."

Many young people who have had the experience of room-hopping told Shell Finance reporters that even if they obtained professional inspection results, it is still extremely difficult to get the landlord to cancel the lease.

Shell Finance reporters searched on social platforms and found that many tenants posted complaints about the room-hopping, saying they were unable to fight for their legal rights from landlords and agents. Among them, there are many internet celebrities with millions of fans, many of whose fans have offered suggestions, but they are unable to get their rent and deposit back.

One young man was impressed. After he found that the formaldehyde exceeded the standard, he negotiated with the landlord many times but to no avail. He said he would sue the landlord. But after calming down and thinking about it, it takes a long time from suing to filing a case. "The landlord has time to waste, but the loss of work, money and time in the process is too costly for ordinary office workers. In the end, it can only be left unresolved."

"After discovering that you have rented a string of houses, you can collect evidence such as the lease contract, payment records, communication records, and inspection reports and resolve the issue through litigation. You can also call the police and consult a professional lawyer to understand your legal rights and ways to protect your rights, and thus safeguard your legal rights." Fu Jian, director of Henan Zejin Law Firm, told Shell Finance that relevant departments should also improve laws and regulations, strengthen supervision and management, establish reporting channels and complaint mechanisms, encourage tenants to actively report violations, strengthen the responsibilities of landlords and agents, impose severe penalties on violations, strengthen publicity and education, establish industry standards, and other measures to rectify market chaos.

Finally, after about half a month of arguing, Lin Wei took the test results that "the formaldehyde, benzene, and TVOC (indoor organic gaseous substances) of the house did not meet the standards" and demanded the remaining rent back. What made him headache was that he would have to rent a new house and move again. "If the next house is also a serial roommate, will I have to go through the same thing again?"

Beijing News Shell Financial Reporter Qin Che Editor Wang Jinyu Proofreader Mu Xiangtong