Dear WeHo: The Landlord Defense Department.

Title: The Landlord Defense Department

Dear Weho,

This publication published an open letter last year from Code Enforcement Officer and whistle blower, Daniel Jones. In the comment section, Mr. Jones responded to a comment critical of the perceived lack of enforcement of short term rentals, noting that Danny Rivas (head of Code Enforcement) instructed him to protect a property on the west side of town. I am the co-president of the tenant association at that very building. Today I am going to tell our side of the story.

Our building is the subject of a record rent reduction for common area neglect. Yet not a single code enforcement fine has been issued for property maintenance despite this rent reduction existing for over a year!

Tenants here — with mold reports in hand — were dismissed by officers operating under Mr. Rivas’ oversight. Leaking windows remain property-wide because code officers tell tenants they cannot tell building owners how to fix things. Have a leak? Unless it is actively flowing with water, they will dismiss your complaint, your photos/videos and even professional contractor opinions in favor of the owner. When you do call them during active rains, you will be lucky to have someone show up, they’ll come back when it’s dry and tell you the same thing. Have a mold report? They will still refuse to cite state law and tell you to contact the health department, who will then send you back to Code in a vicious loop of inaction. Have decrepit plumbing? They might take twelve days to show up and as long as the owner promises to address it, they’ll be given a meaningless Notice of Violation that will never be followed up with fines. Have a leaking roof, as long as it is patched, their building and safety department will give it the okay.

Recently our building experienced severe sewage backups into four units. An outstanding rent reduction exists for building-wide plumbing problems, yet no fines have been issued for this problem. The owner is required to re-plumb this building but has done nothing to address it. Why? Because no fines are issued and the rent reduction is not significant enough to spend the money to address it. It took twelve days for an officer to show up at this property, all the while tenants could not shower. When he arrived, he only cited one unit and refused to cite the other units despite being let in to observe the violation. Violations already exist, where are the fines?

This building also has severe cracks and leaks into the subterranean garage. Notice of Violations for this are currently two and a half years old. A rent reduction also exists for this issue. Has it been followed up on by Code? No. Have fines been issued? Of course not. So why would the owner fix it? There is no incentive to do so.

The same goes for our roof, which is currently pooling water and leaking into units. A rent reduction exists for this as well. The officer explained they signed off on a “re-roof” in April 2023. No re-roof occurred! A torch-down overlay was done improperly and is now leaking again. No follow up, no fines and no recourse for tenants.

Most insultingly of all, when our landlord’s agents engaged in an illegal short term rental scheme with Hiller Hospitality, code officers did not enforce the laws. They posted meaningless signs on the doors to offending units. They placated the tenant’s outrage over the activity, saying they were “investigating.” It was us who did the investigation, sending officers links and explaining to them how to track the illicit scheme. The activity only stopped because tenants informed guests of the laws, and cancellations prevented the operation from succeeding. Rivas, Officer Torres and then Supervisor Alper held a meeting at City Hall with the offending parties. Officer Torres wrote a report intended for the City Attorney. That report never made her desk because it was withheld in a deal to stop the activity– which continued for another month.

Today, one of the guilty parties, Hiller Hospitality, is being sued by the Los Angeles City Attorney for $62 million following price gouging in the aftermath of the fires. The suit also addressed their massive illegal short term rental scheme in rent controlled apartments. Imagine if we had a functional City Hall that put a stop to this when they knew about it two years ago? Instead this illegal operation was allowed to continue, and it preyed on the suffering of people reeling from one of the worst tragedies to ever befall the City of Los Angeles.

I am coming forward now because tenants demand an investigation into the perceived conflicts of interest present at West Hollywood Code Enforcement. We know our building is not alone in this conundrum. We know this problem of apathy, lack of enforcement and poor understanding of laws superseding West Hollywood code (such as state mold laws) are not being applied. We are a city of laws, but laws have no meaning if they are not enforced. I urge anyone reading this to share their story in the comments below and to consider writing of their own issues in a Dear Weho column. We also need the media to put the pressure where it is long overdue!

Sincerely,

MK Leibman

Co-President, The Larrabee Project Tenant Association

thelarrabeeproject@gmail.com