I used to be born and raised within the Tenderloin. San Francisco doesn’t give a rattling about us

I could always tell how late it was by the cold and the sound. Like clockwork, the chilly San Francisco air would creep into my family’s one-bedroom apartment in the Tenderloin by 10 pm The breeze would slip through the slits of the rotting wooden window frames, rustling the newspapers we used for insulation.

But one November night, the sound was different. I heard scratching—it had to be a mouse.

I dashed to the bathroom and slumped onto the toilet seat cover. I looked upward and cursed the God that would allow people to live in these conditions. It was only then that I noticed threads of gray and black mold decorating the bathroom walls like strings of Christmas lights.

Our home was a biohazardous wasteland.

Moving around the apartment, I saw my mom in the kitchen cooking pho for the next day. The floor started to give beneath her as she carried scallions the few feet from the refrigerator to the sink. It was only a matter of time before it caved in.

She lit a piece of paper and transferred the flame onto the stove. I watched the steam from the boiling water travel up the wall to the kitchen vent, in front of a patchwork of orange and black mold.

At the time, I was in high school. My immigrant parents didn’t see anything wrong with our apartment — it was no different from many of the ones they’d seen in their home country of Vietnam. They did not know or care about the possible health complications from inadequate insulation and chronic rodent and mold exposure. They accepted our lot — even as our daily commutes would take us past the pristine marble floors and chandeliers of the Olympic Club hotel, just a couple blocks from our building.

But I couldn’t.

San Francisco, supposedly the most progressive city in the country, didn’t give a damn about us.

It was naive to assume that these problems were isolated to our fifth-floor apartment. Older residents lamented in Vietnamese to my parents about the infestations in their homes. Occasionally, I was invited into their units. They, too, were cramped dungeons with cracks in the walls wide enough for mice to travel through. Sticky mouse traps lined countertops and floor perimeters, but the mice grew wise and found other routes throughout the building. Some residents eventually grew tired of constantly cleaning the mouse droppings. Pellets began to accumulate on furniture and crevices, outlining the edges of living space.

We all generally understood that we had the legal right to a safe home. But no one in our immigrant-rich apartment complex knew how to advocate for themselves; they could barely speak English, and their English-speaking children were not old enough to take on the burden.

It was past my bedtime. I returned to the bathroom and splashed my face with water. Before I could dry off, I felt something grace my feet. Maybe it was another mouse — or maybe it was the same one I’d heard before.

I sighed, headed back to bed, and cried myself to sleep.

Our apartment was a death trap but we couldn’t move out. It was my low-income family’s only affordable option. With rent control, my parents paid less than $1,000 per month. Even then, they barely made enough to pay for rent and food, so an exterminator was out of the question.

My parents wouldn’t take action, so I contacted the apartment owners and pleaded for help. They responded by telling me I shouldn’t have been living in my parent’s apartment in the first place.

The owners were aware of our living conditions. They made periodic inspections, presumably dismissing the unit’s numerous health and safety code violations. They did the same with the other apartments in the building as well.

After a few years, some younger residents grew frustrated and moved out. They had graduated from college and had incomes that could support more expensive, safer apartments. Although they were aware of their right to a safe home, they knew that a lengthy legal battle with the building owners was not worth the time and stress, especially when they had the means to get out.

It only took the owners a few months to transform those vacant units into luxury-style apartments that they could charge double or triple the rent for.

Two years ago, a full college scholarship got me out of that place too — and out of the Bay. I would like nothing more than to leave that squalid apartment behind, just like those other young people did before me.

But I can’t.

My parents still live there, as do so many of my childhood neighbors and friends. They all deserve better.

Danny Nguyen is a writer who grew up in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. He recently received his bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University, where he studied molecular and cellular biology, and medicine, health and society.