Five Tenants Are Legal but Noisy

QUESTION: I just had five noisy college kids move into a rental house next door to me in West Los Angeles. In the past, the house was always rented to families.

When I called the zoning department to find out if this many unrelated kids are legal in an R-1 single-family neighborhood, I was told that a recent ruling from San Francisco said they are.

It sort of takes away the protections one used to feel in a neighborhood of family homes. Now it’s like living in a rather raucous apartment complex.

Is there anything I can do? Was there a change in the law, or was it always this way and I was lucky up until now?

ANSWER: According to Nick Trotta, an engineer at the Los Angeles Department of Building & Safety, the code limits occupancy in such neighborhoods to not more than five unrelated people.

And Trotta said there was a court case in Santa Barbara, not San Francisco, that set aside the arbitrary limit of five people. “It also set down some standards for such situations,” he said. “For instance, if they exceed five people, they have to act like a family according to certain tests.”

Relying on state or local occupancy codes wouldn’t help either. According to city and state occupancy standards, landlords can pack tenants into rentals almost more tightly than Brazilian soccer fans at a World Cup game.

For instance, L.A. Municipal Codes 91.1207 and 91.1208, which are based on the state occupancy code, allow 10 people to live in a 470-square-foot rental. Even if the rental house you are referring to is small, maybe 1,200 square feet, according to those codes, about 20 people could live there.

These codes require 70 square feet of living space for the first occupant and 50 square feet thereafter, basically excluding kitchens, halls, bath and closets.

Fortunately, landlords are allowed to limit occupancy in rentals through leases or month-to-month rental agreements as long as they don’t discriminate against protected classes.

For example, limiting occupancy in a one-bedroom apartment to three people probably is legal. On the other hand, limiting occupancy in a one-bedroom unit to one person might be considered discriminatory against children.

As far as quieting your noisy neighbors, merely talking to them sometimes helps. That’s the best first approach to try. If it doesn’t work, you can always call the LAPD’s Noise Enforcement Division at (213) 893-8118, which may help, unless your neighbors are quiet by the time the LAPD arrives.

Tenants Cause Some of L.A.’s Urban Blight

Q: As an inner-city Los Angeles resident and rental property owner, I was thrilled to hear about the Anti-Slum Plan as reported in the July 29 issue of The Times.

But I am incensed that all the blame is placed on owners for the rundown conditions of houses and apartments in our communities. What about the renters who cause many of these problems?

If L.A. wants responsible investment in unstable neighborhoods, it has to start making some demands on renters and not automatically treating property owners like criminals. What do you think?

A: In spite of all of the trash-talking about slum units in which the politicians and bureaucrats engage, you are right when you say that few apartment owners trash their own buildings.

Sometimes, the very tenants who complain about slum conditions even intentionally cause them to enable them to have excuses to quit paying rent to apartment owners.

Several years ago the L.A. City Council passed an ordinance that provided for citations in the most flagrant cases of tenant-caused destruction, but the law never was enforced.

Allergic to Smoke? Say So Before Signing Lease

Q: Recent reconstruction of my Orange County home has necessitated our moving into a nearby apartment until the work is done. The facility is quite nice, with the exception of the fact that we are in a second-floor rental above two chain smokers.

We never were asked about this and we forgot to mention that we are very allergic to smoke. The management will not let us move now, so we must have our air conditioner and ceiling fans running at all times to keep the smoke from filling our apartment.

The management has told us that it is illegal to ask prospective renters whether they smoke or not because their apartment is their home and in it they have a “right” to smoke. What about our right to breathe? Shouldn’t the owners pay our electric bills because they are so exorbitant because of the need for constant air conditioning?

A: I think you will get a chilly reception from the management company if you ask it to pay your air-conditioning bill, and there is no state or local law requiring them to do so.

Also, let me clear the air about smokers’ “rights.” I am unfamiliar with any law granting renters the constitutional right to smoke in their apartments. In fact, “smoke-free” apartment buildings are legal. Unfortunately, you didn’t find one.

You say that the management won’t allow you to move, so I assume that you have signed a short-term lease that you cannot break without penalty. The management company is probably right that it can enforce the agreement because you admit that you didn’t ask about smoking.

If you had asked, and the management company misrepresented itself, you would have had some legal grounds on which to break the lease.

Postema is the editor of Apartment Age magazine, a publication of the Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, an apartment owners’ service group, and manager of public affairs for the California Apartment Law Information Foundation, which disseminates information about landlord-tenant law to renters and owners in the state of California. Mail your questions on any aspect of apartment living to AAGLA, 12012 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025.