Renter's Insurance

Inspiration

I live in an apartment in Los Angeles and keep seeing new apartment buildings go up around me. More housing is good — but it also means more renters dealing with mold, no hot water, and landlords who don’t write back. I wanted a simple tool that helps renters document a problem, understand what to do next, and actually send a clear request.

What it does

Renter’s Insurance / AptGuard helps renters:

• Report a housing problem (photo, location, short description)
• Get a plain-language assessment: severity, why it matters, who is typically responsible, and next steps
• Generate a maintenance request letter in English or Spanish
• Send it to the owner first; if there’s no response after 2 days, escalate to city housing (LAHD)

It is an organizational tool, not legal advice.

How we built it

A thin web prototype: demo cases (no hot water, mold), bilingual letter templates, and a fake Send flow (owner → city) so we could demo the whole path in minutes. We grounded the why in Census data: ACS 2020–2024 5-year Tables B25003 and B25008, aggregated to LA City Council Districts 8, 9, and 10. In those districts combined, renters outnumber owners by about 110,000 households (~1 : 2.6 owned:rented).

Challenges we ran into

Council districts aren’t a Census geography, so we had to be honest about how tract data maps to CD 8/9/10. We also had to ship a helper app, not an infographic — and keep EN/ES on the letter without building a full backend in time.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

A working demo a renter can actually click through: report → understand → copy/send a bilingual letter → escalate if the owner goes silent.

What we learned

“Renter” ≠ “apartment.” Tenure (who pays rent) is the right audience. Small-area Census numbers need a method, not a guess. The useful product is the letter + send path, not another dashboard.

What's next for Renter's Insurance

Real send (email / LAHD intake), saved case history, full-app EN/ES, and more habitability types. Stay a helper — never pretend to be a lawyer.

Built With

• chrome
• cursor
• v.o