Los Angeles, CA

I didn’t get to post yesterday because of ongoing apartment problems, and it made me realize that I should really make sure everyone knows their rights as a renter. The couple living in the flat behind us (there are four apartments here total, two upstairs, two down) apparently had a plumbing problem with their bathroom sink, and though I haven’t been home much during the day this past year, it seems to be an ongoing thing that started even before they moved in. But rather than calling a plumber to fix the problem once and for all, the cheap 80+ year old landlord insists on either trying to fix it himself or having his tenants do it. This led to the couple turning off the hot water without notifying any of us and leaving the building for over an hour with it off, and they also somehow managed to temporarily knock out our gas. I went to check the water heater, thinking that its pilot had blown out, since I didn’t know what was going on and no one had talked to us about shutting things off. I passed the bottom back apartment and their door was open, and the man that lived there asked if we had a gas leak in our apartment, since theirs had suddenly started reeking of gas. I told him we didn’t even have gas, so maybe ours was leaking into his place. I also asked him to check their water, and went off to call the landlord.

Trying to make a long story as short as possible, the landlord came out only after hearing that water was pouring from the downstairs back apartment’s ceiling, and when I called him later to tell him we were still without hot water, he hung up on me. Yesterday a plumber was supposed to come to straighten all this out, and while we have hot water again, I never heard anything about the plumber showing up (he was over an hour late by the time I left for work). After all this crap and my sister’s own issues with her landlord (he refused to fix her heater for at least three months, and also refuses to knock down a wasp’s nest right outside their door, even though it’s a hazard to all of the tenants), I want to make sure everyone knows what their rights are as a renter and what you can do to make sure your landlord isn’t scamming you. The entire California Landlord/Tenant Book is online here, conveniently broken down by category. You can order a hardcopy through the website, or simply browse for what you specifically need, like security deposit refunds (unless you’ve put holes in the wall or really trashed the place, you should get back your entire deposit, and if the landlord insists on deducting “cleaning fees,” then he must provide you with an itemized list so you see exactly how much cleaning cost), what exactly is the landlord’s responsibility, and what constitutes an uninhabitable living space (in which case you shouldn’t pay rent). Know it, study it, bookmark it!