When I decided to rent this small apartment for my family, I didn’t realize the risk I was taking.

I knew there was a very ancient gas heating system. The landlord assured us that it was a great heating unit, even though it seemed like it was far past its time. There also wasn’t a cooling system installed, so we had to get a couple of window A/C units, which ended up cooling the small space just fine. The main issue turned out to be the heating system though. One huge issue was that our young children always wanted to shove crayons and toys into the heating unit. I had to turn the thing off and pull it apart to scrape off burned crayons and a little bit of plastic from various toys. I ended up putting a fine mesh metal grate on the top so no more toys could pass through into the heating unit. Also, the thing was so old and it was giving out trace amounts of carbon monoxide. The landlord claimed all that was going up through the chimney, but I realized he was full of it. I had a professional come out and he said it was really bad. We had to keep the windows open before we were able to move to a new place where it was safer, but I just felt bad for putting my family in that situation. I should have known that old heater would be bad news. It was a terrible design for a heating system anyway, especially since children could easily access it.

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