City Files 17 Misdemeanor Charges Against Landlords : Apartments: Inspectors found rats and cockroaches, broken windows, gaping holes in ceilings and walls and, in some units, no hot and cold water. The owners blame the tenants.
Glendale city prosecutors have filed criminal charges against the landlords of a downtown apartment building, calling the conditions in the building deplorable.
Richard Famiglietti of Reseda and Allen Lazarus of Los Angeles, owners of the 14-unit building at 130 N. Jackson St., face 17 misdemeanor charges, including failure to provide hot and cold running water and heat, repair broken windows, walls and plumbing, and failure to prevent rat and cockroach infestation. The owners say the tenants are responsible for many of the building’s problems.
The pair will be arraigned next Thursday in Glendale Municipal Court. If convicted, each could face six months in jail and a $500 fine on each count.
“I would characterize it as a serious situation, with these tenants clearly living in places few people would want to live,” said Assistant City Atty. Ron Braden.
The city’s action is not rare--about 30 cases involving criminal charges against landlords have been filed in Glendale in the past decade. But few of the cases have been so severe, said City Atty. Scott Howard.
“This ranks up there as being one of the worst,” Howard said. “These are the conditions that you would classify as being fairly deplorable.”
Some of the apartments have gaping holes in the ceiling and walls, through which rats and cockroaches can climb, Braden said. Others have cracked and peeling paint, soiled and torn carpets and broken faucets. Although hot and cold water has been restored at the building since the charges were filed, many of the other conditions remain, he said.
The city informally complained about the building in May, 1989, when inspectors found minor violations such as torn carpets, Braden said. But, spurred by tenants’ complaints, officials inspected the apartments last month and filed eight of the formal charges. A second inspection last Friday brought an additional nine charges, Braden said.
The owners and tenants blame each other for the condition of the building, a two-story, red-brick complex built in 1926 that sits near Glendale school district headquarters on Wilson Avenue.
Famiglietti, a Reseda real estate agent, said he and Lazarus, who have owned the building since 1987, have spent thousands of dollars in repairs to the building, including the purchase of a new roof. He blamed a damaged stairwell and broken windows in the building’s back doors on recent acts of vandalism. But he attributed other problems to some of his tenants, who he said abused the property and were not paying rent.
For instance, Famiglietti said, tenants of two second-floor apartments are day laborers who congregate with others down the block from the building, at the corner of Jackson and Broadway streets, to wait for work. They often permit other day laborers to shower or live in their units, crowding five to eight men in a single apartment.
“The building is not a slum landlord building,” said Famiglietti, who owns about six other apartment buildings in the San Fernando Valley. “It’s a 60-year-old building that needs work.
“I don’t want anybody to live in squalid conditions. But there have been problems with some of the tenants,” he continued. “When you’ve got six guys living in a single, it takes a matter of months before the building deteriorates. What we have to do is get rid of the bad tenants and then we can fix up the building.”
Los Angeles County criminal court records showed no other similar cases against Famiglietti or Lazarus. Lazarus could not be reached for comment.
Tenants at the building Friday had mixed sentiments about its condition. While a carpenter and two assistants were busy repairing and painting several first-floor vacant units, one elderly tenant sitting in front of the complex said he rarely has had problems with his apartment.
“My apartment’s always been livable,” said Willard Grimes, 79, who has lived in the building for 14 years. “I guess I was lucky and got the best apartment.”
But other tenants said some of the apartments have been in disrepair for months, despite complaints to the landlords. They acknowledged that work was being done on vacant units, but said the greatest need for repairs was in apartments already occupied.
Disgruntled tenants also confirmed that day laborers often visit and stay in two apartments, but said neither the workers nor the tenants who are day laborers have damaged the units. City Atty. Howard agreed, saying the conditions that brought criminal charges go beyond neglect by tenants.
“This is not an overnight problem,” said Maria Duenas, 35, who lives with her son in the building’s only two-bedroom apartment. Duenas is one of several tenants the landlords say has not paid rent.
“This is years of negligence of not fixing the place,” she said. “This is not a case of all the apartments having nine people in them.”
On Friday, a 46-year-old woman who recently moved her elderly mother out of the building because of its deteriorated state, stopped by to collect belongings. As she walked through the first-floor apartment her mother had rented for 11 years, she shook her head and pointed at cockroaches on the floor, paint peeling from the walls and a gaping hole in the bathroom ceiling.
“My mother paid $450 a month for this misery,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified.
In his second-floor apartment, Aristeo Cruz, a 23-year-old day laborer, pointed out torn window screens, holes in the walls and carpet and a kitchen sink filled with black water. The kitchen plumbing had not worked for months, Cruz said.
“The owners just don’t want to put any money into this building,” Duenas said. “Hopefully, the city will get the problems taken care of.”
