Rich Renter, Poor Renter : A Tale of 2 Landlord Disputes : 8 Families in Pico-Union Tenement Sue Building Owner for $10 Million

Eight poor families--fearful of sleeping at night because they are under constant attack by rats and cockroaches in their run-down apartment building near downtown Los Angeles--filed a $10-million lawsuit Wednesday against their landlord, who is under investigation for alleged substandard conditions in other dwellings that he owns.

The building at 801 S. Union Ave. is already the subject of a criminal investigation by the Los Angeles Interagency Slum Housing Task Force, and the building’s owner, Los Angeles attorney Lance Jay Robbins, has been ordered to fix up the dilapidated structure, city officials said.

Robbins, who owns more than 1,000 apartments in the city, blamed many of the problems on the tenants, who he contended do not keep up their apartments.

Deputy City Atty. Bill Cullen said a preliminary inspection by Los Angeles County health officials in February confirmed many of the allegations contained in the tenants’ civil lawsuit, which was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court:

- The building is plagued with rats, cockroaches and other vermin.

- There are numerous holes in the ceilings of the building’s 35 units, allowing rats, in some instances, to drop through and attack youngsters playing below.

- Security is inadequate, and transients on occasion sneak in to deface the property with graffiti.

The tenants’ suit said the rat problem is so bad that one woman, who was pregnant, suffered a miscarriage earlier this year after she was startled by a rat in her apartment and fell down.

“I was so frightened after that, so I moved out,” Gregoria Hernandez said in Spanish. “It’s just terrible in there.”

Another tenant, Maria Teresa Montenegro, told reporters at a news conference held in front of the building to announce the lawsuit that she was forced to stay up at night because rats and insects were attacking her two children.

“The rats would get into the bed and bite the kids,” she said. “The kids would wake up at night screaming, ‘Mommy, mommy, something bit me.’ ”

To underscore the seriousness of the tenants’ plight, they displayed for reporters more than 20 insect and rat traps that captured a variety of cockroaches and other vermin Tuesday night.

They also presented a 3-year-old tenant, Eric Molina, with bites on his face and leg that tenants said came from the rats and fleas.

Reached by telephone, Robbins said none of his employees in the building “have seen any rats.” He added, “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if a lot of this (at the news conference) was staged.”

Robbins said he has spent an estimated $130,000 in repairs since he purchased the building two years ago for about $500,000. “We’re making continual repairs, but the tenants keep breaking things,” he said.

He added that some tenants have refused to let workmen into the apartments in order to make the necessary repairs.

“As buildings go, this is no source of pride and joy, but it is a lot better than others in this city,” he said. “I can show you a lot worse.”

Tenants, many of them living in one-room apartments, pay rents ranging from $285 to $350 a month. Robbins said he recently applied to raise rents an average of $130 a month to pay for repairs that he has made in the building.

The application is pending before the city’s Rent Stabilization Board, he said.

Cullen, the deputy city attorney assigned to the slum housing task force, said the building is one of several in the Pico-Union District that has drawn the attention of authorities.

Cullen said Robbins has been sued by the housing task force to clean up deplorable conditions in nine of his apartment buildings, including the one on South Union Avenue.

“The suit dates back to 1984 and in some cases, he has complied with our orders,” Cullen said. “In others, he hasn’t.”

To date, Robbins has not complied with the order to clean up the Union Avenue building, Cullen said.

Last August, Los Angeles officials, saying the city was owed $135,000, shut off utilities to more than 200 Central City apartments owned by Robbins. Power was restored about a day later when Robbins made what Department of Water and Power officials said was a “satisfactory arrangement” to pay the bills.

A hearing on the tenants’ lawsuit is tentatively scheduled for today.

Wednesday’s suit comes after an April 25 jury decision in Los Angeles Superior Court in which a millionaire slum landlord, Michael Schaefer, was ordered to pay $1.83 million to his former tenants for allowing his mid-Wilshire area apartment building to become overrun with rats, cockroaches, sewage and street gangs. The judgment is believed to be the largest ever in a tenant-landlord dispute in California.