“The Last of Us”? Apartment in Rio suffers from mushroom infestation and post goes viral

Journalist João Brizzi, from Rio de Janeiro, found himself in a scene from “The Last of Us”, when the apartment he rented became infested with mushrooms.

In a thread of posts on X (formerly Twitter), he says that he had just moved because mushrooms had appeared in his old home due to infiltration, which, according to him, neither the owner nor the building resolved.

But that wasn’t the only surprise. “I reported everything with countless photographic records. Quinto Andar put the ad back on the air. Imagine the visit”, he wrote in one of the posts.

I just moved because my old apartment is infested with mushrooms due to an infiltration that neither the owner nor the building resolved. I reported everything with countless photographic records. O @fifth floor put the ad back on the air. imagine the visit. pic.twitter.com/nZ3MwVbjAF

— João Brizzi (@joaobrizzzi) September 8, 2023

“Yesterday I didn’t mention the agent who arranged a visit with another tenant, but he just woke me up to ask if he could confirm the visit. This after receiving the photos and reports”, says Brizzi.

In response, the broker stated that he had already rented “very poorly” and that he had thought that the image of the apartment being mentioned in a report was a montage.

After the first post, which exceeded 3.2 million views until this Sunday (10), Brizzi went on to explain why the ad was back on air.

“Finally, it wasn’t the owner who put the ad back up. She was already warned and is also in contact with QuintoAndar, as she understands that she needs to renovate the apartment before renting it. She relieved me of the renovation/painting because it wouldn’t make sense before the infiltration was remedied,” she wrote.

According to Brizzi, the platform identifies contracts at the end and reactivates the ad with photos from before. “This had already happened to me in another apartment, which I handed over without any problems, but it was advertised with the same photos,” he says.

The report also generated several comparisons with the HBO Max series “The Last of Us”. One of the users responded with a photo of the protagonist Joel (Pedro Pascal) entering a building taken over by fungi and captioned it with the phrase: “Future tenant going to visit the apartment.”

“Come and live in this unique experience of ‘The Last of Us’”, said another. With the post going viral, Brizzi shared a print showing that the series had returned to the most talked about topics on the network.

Other users toyed with the possibility of eating the mushrooms. “If they were those hallucinogenic mushrooms, you could even collect them…”, wrote one user.

Others shared messages of support and similar problems when renting and in relationships with websites and landlords.

“Here I managed to solve it. Go ahead for you. The truth is that, without the luck of a decent owner, it is difficult to resolve anything. I’ve rented through QuintoAndar with good people too, but when it’s bad, it’s not the platform that saves you”, writes one of them.

The apartment rental and purchase platform QuintoAndar responded to the post: “Hi, João. Could you DM us, please? It is important to us that the properties on the platform meet our quality standards. We are working hard to improve this rule and, whenever something passes, we correct it quickly. Thanks for reporting.”

To the message, Brizzi replied: “I called 10 times in the last year, guys, it wasn’t for lack of a direct message.”

A CNN contacted QuintoAndar, who informed that the property is no longer advertised on the platform.

“QuintoAndar informs that the property was unpublished because it did not meet the quality requirements required by the platform’s policy. We are reinforcing our quality control to prevent cases like this from occurring again, reinforcing our commitment to offering our customers the best possible experience when searching for their new home.”