How To Approach Radon Mitigation As A Tenant

As a tenant, radon and other environmental concerns are valid questions for your landlord. To start the process you can pick up a cheap charcoal test kit from Home Depot or Lowes to get an initial reading. If the levels come back high, you can go to your landlord and bring the results. If they want more confirmation on the levels being high before going forward with mitigation which can sometimes be costly, you can either pick up another test kit and average the two results or you can call a professional out to leave a monitor for a couple of days.

If the landlord is hesitant to do mitigation despite the high results, you can point towards the common law covenant of habitability within the lease. And state that because the levels are dangerous and above the EPA action level, it is not a safe environment to be residing in. This will more often than not push them the extra step to have mitigation done.

Remember this is not legal advice, if you do have any legal questions contact a local attorney about your rights as a tenant.

If you are cooperative and communicative with your landlord about high radon levels then it should not be an issue or cause of concern.

For example, we had a home in Wadsworth, OH where the tenant had the home tested and the radon levels came back high. He talked to the landlord who recommended calling out a local company to come and give a quote. The landlord and renter were happy with our quote, we got written a check by the landlord and everything went very smoothly. This is an example of the tenant and landlord working together to increase the safety of the home for the current and future renters as well as any headache or liability for the owner.