They smell like arsenic and ammonia truely horrible living conditions but the rent is cheap so saving every dollar we get to get started in the game.

But don't try to get me to chug your arsenic kool-aid with ya. 

It aids us in our malady, but similar to the man drinking arsenic we need to not find causation where there is none. 

It’s totally raw land - power and water are only 300 feet away at the main road.The property has deeded access to the county irrigation water (NID), and there’s an abundance of beautiful manzanita, black oaks, cedar, and ponderosa pine.After $3k of 2 failed perc & mantle tests, $1200 of soil testing for lead/mercury/arsenic/asbestos, and endless hours at the building department, we decided that although this place ticks most of our boxes, we A) just can’t reconcile with the excessive mining history in the county*, and B) can't continue perc & mantle testing at $1500/test to find out whether it will cost ~$10k for a standard septic or more like ~$30k for an engineered system.

quality of well water is extremely important. need to sample not only for potable criteria but the full range of regulated substances. naturally-occuring metals such as arsenic can be very expensive to treat.