Hi /r/legaladvice! Throw away account due to the court documents just showing up in the mail.
I live in an apartment complex in California that has had a massive cockroach infestation for months. It got to the point they were in our refrigerator, couch, carpet, emerging from electric outlets and cracks in the floors and walls, and we woke up multiple nights with them in our bed. We asked management to fix the infestation in the 60+ unit building, which they have sent pest control in to lay down baits and spray cabinets. We had pest control come to our apartment starting in July for 5 weeks straight, which caused the cockroaches to move into apartments around us. We had pest control come again to treat the apartment this past Tuesday due to cockroaches running around our unit again. They never went away, just decreased in numbers from what we could visibly see in our single unit. Their droppings and smell have been present and continuous since May.
I, along with other tenants in the building, have been met with hostility every time we file a complaint. We receive letters threatening eviction unless we do the treatments the apartment requires (which do not work) and when we complain and ask for better treatment to fix the severity of the issue, nothing changes. We had local Code Enforcement get involved in July. Code Enforcement issued a violation to the complex with threats of citations and legal action if all cockroaches are not removed from the complex within 10 days. We also provided a written notice June 28 requesting the cockroaches be eradicated from our building. According the code enforcement, the first complaint about the cockroaches was over 9 months ago, but they needed more tenant complaints in order to be able to take action. As of right now over 20 units have complained that I am aware of.
After continuing to pay rent despite not being able to cook or sleep in our unit, we decided to break the lease. Our move out date is the end of September. We were forced to pay over 2x the monthly rent plus rent for the remaining 30 days in order to avoid eviction/legal action. We are happy to be done despite having to throw away some of our furniture due to the cockroaches and their droppings infesting everything. I have left a few reviews on Yelp (including images of the cockroaches) and complaints about the way management has handled (more like refused to handle) the uninhabitable living conditions. Whenever we complained to the manager or assistant manager, they refused to give us contact information for the owner and property management company to file a complaint.
On September 9 I received a message on Yelp from another tenant of another infested building in the complex. The message was a YouTube link to a video of the tenant and the assistant manager of the complex getting into a verbal confrontation regarding late fees and the treatment tenants are receiving from management. I will post a link to the video if I am allowed. In the video, the assistant manager addresses that she is unprofessional, is professional to tenants faces and then as soon as they leave she is not, and that if anyone has any disagreements with management they can pay the rent and leave. She also admits that they refuse to let tenants complain to anyone besides management on site. They refuse to provide tenants with owner/property management contact information and state that all complaints need to be addressed by onsite management (even when the complaints are ABOUT onsite management.)
The Manager when asked again by the tenant who she can complain to retorts that the tenant can "talk to the police" (which made the assistant manager laugh.) The tenant is also complaining about a late fee she received, with the assistant manager states that they "charge everybody late fees, so what, get over it." The video is recorded in the office of the apartment complex which is currently an apartment in the building due to construction. It is recorded during business hours with the door open (people can be seen walking in and out of frame in and out of the unit.) I decided to share the YouTube link on my Facebook page due to the fact the way the assistant manager spoke to the tenant was the exact way she had spoken to us through our entire complaint process at the complex. I had been posting videos and photos of the cockroaches in our apartment since June to help document and have others see the conditions we were living in. This had attracted the attention of a few other tenants at the complex who informed me of the rude and horrible treatment they were also receiving from management. The other tenant that recorded the video informed me that someone had filed a complaint against the video due to it gaining attention, so I decided to download the video via one of the video downloading websites and reposting it to Facebook. I posted it with this message.
This is how the management at (Apartment Complex) in (City), CA treat their tenants. We have been dealing with outbursts like this for months as we have filed numerous complaints over the disgusting conditions that include a massive cockroach infestation. When we ask these three ladies in the office who we can complain to about the conditions, they say "no one." They say they are the only people that we can talk to as (Property Management) in (City), CA refuses to speak to tenants or take complaints. This is the treatment a tenant received when she went to pay her rent after the office was closed early on a Saturday. (Assistant Manager) has been nothing but nasty to every tenant she encounters. (Manager) (who we finally see at the end) stands by and lets her employees treat paying residents like this. When we complain to her she tells us it is "too bad." We were told it was "too bad" that there were cockroaches crawling all over us while we slept in JUNE! They are aware of the severity of the infestation including cockroaches coming out of electric sockets and cracks in the walls. They lay eggs in the refrigerator and stove, couch and carpet. "Too bad. So what" is the response. I am posting this again because they have already filed a complaint about the youtube video asking for it to be taken down. The conditions at (Apartment Complex) are uninhabitable and disgusting. People are getting sick due to the overwhelming presence and smell of cockroaches and their feces throughout the building. Management on site and (Property Management Company) refuses to do anything about it. (City) Code Enforcement have already issued a violation but we have waited months for (Apartment Complex) to be cited or penalized for these actions. Why is there nothing in place to protect the tenants from the uninhabitable conditions and harassment from Management? Something needs to be done! There are families with children and elderly/vulnerable adults living in this complex. We have a neighbor with a disabled child who is wheelchair bound that has had cockroaches crawling on her. The complex refuses to take the steps to tent the building to fix the infestation and they refuse to provide separate accommodations. This needs to stop! PLEASE SHARE THIS VIDEO so the tenants at (Apartment Complex) can be provided with inhabitable apartments and these girls in "management" can get their act together!
The video as of right now has almost 1k shares and 61k views.
Today I received an Order to go to small claims court in the mail. The plaintiff is the assistant manager, who is suing me for $3500 claiming "defamation and job harassment." When asked on the document how she calculated the money that was owed to her, she stated "Emotional, stress, loss of wages and defamation." The tenant who recorded the video received the same order, as well as an order regarding a restraining order due to the assistant manager being "harassed, fearing for her life, and being followed home" by the tenant. The assistant manager also stated the tenant calls the office constantly and harasses staff, which the tenant has phone records to prove otherwise.
I just want to know what the typical process is with defamation claims in small claims court. I find it to be impossible that "defamation" could have costed her $3500 in less than 2 weeks, especially considering the fact nothing I have posted is false and the video is literally her speaking and saying the things I am complaining about. I am definitely going to be going to the court to fight this, and will be taking as many witnesses (other tenants) as possible, along with all of the cockroach documentation, letters, photos, and possibly letters from other tenants who cannot be present as witnesses.
Thank you, sorry for the long post.
Submitted September 24, 2017 at 01:30PM by Throwitawaynow8790 http://ift.tt/2wPn8pj legaladvice
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