Target of Tenant Strike Is Awarded Back Rent

A Santa Ana landlord whose tenants have been on a rent strike to protest housing conditions was awarded almost $40,000 in back rent by a Municipal Court judge this week and allowed to hike rents.

The decision marks the first time a judge has granted an increase in rents close to the amount requested by a landlord since a rent strike began last year among 500 mostly Latino families in Santa Ana and Anaheim.

Judge Robert Jameson set rents at between $375 and $410 for 33 units in two apartment buildings on South Standard Avenue for September, October and November, according to the landlord, Richard Zanelli, a partner in Beach West Properties of Huntington Beach.

Judge Made Inspection

Jameson said he awarded the increase Tuesday after an inspection of the apartment units and testimony showed that conditions had improved since the strike began.

“They (the landlords) have done a lot of work. In some cases the apartments were brought up to their true value,” he said.

The complaints included windows that would not open, cockroach, rodent and lice infestation and stoves that didn’t work.

Tenants joined the rent strike in May to protest conditions in their apartments. Zanelli filed suit to evict the striking tenants, but in June he agreed to make repairs.

Under that court-approved agreement, rent was frozen for three months, and tenants were allowed to withhold payments if conditions did not improve.

Tenants refused to pay their rent for July and August after they said repairs were not made. An inspection in August by Jameson led the judge to lower rents to between $300 and $375 per unit, Christopher Savage, an attorney for Zanelli said.

Cooperative Issue

Zanelli said the most recent ruling occurred because the judge “finally came around to what we’ve been saying all along that things are not in that bad shape.”

Zanelli said that some tenants had been turning off gas in their units so that stoves would not light and were uncooperative with maintenance workers who tried to spray for cockroaches.

Jameson agreed that some of the problems in the units were caused by a lack of cooperation from tenants. Some stoves would not light, he said, because the holes were clogged with grease.

“There was a difference in improvements between apartments where tenants had cooperated and where they had not,” he said.

Jameson said problems remain in some units, such as gas burners not lighting, but he said these were not sufficient to continue withholding rent.