Building Owners Charged in Rental Violations : Housing: Two Valley women are accused of allowing slumlike conditions at apartments.

Two San Fernando Valley women face charges that they allow slum-type living conditions in two downtown apartment buildings they own, authorities said Monday, noting that one of the women was convicted five years ago on similar charges involving the same buildings.

Dolores S. Whitzman, 65, of Tarzana, and Patricia Rance, 61, of Encino were charged with allowing two 30-unit buildings, at 1516 S. Hope St. and 1526 S. Hope St. to fall into such severe disrepair that they pose health and safety threats to their tenants, the city attorney’s office said.

The two women and their company, Perlin Properties, which holds title to the buildings, were charged July 16 with 55 violations of fire, health and building and safety codes, according to City Atty. James K. Hahn. Whitzman and Rance are scheduled to be arraigned Thursday in Los Angeles Municipal Court.

Tenants in the buildings near the California Medical Center have long complained about drug dealers and prostitutes using the rooftops and hallways, and about other living conditions, authorities said. Recently, the tenants went to the nearby St. Francis Center, a church-based social services agency, which in turn contacted a public-interest law firm specializing in slum housing cases.

Mirta E. Ocana, a paralegal with the law firm, described the buildings as some of the worst slum housing in the city.

“There are strangers in the hallways shooting drugs, feces on the roof and rats and roaches everywhere,” Ocana said. “It is disgusting, and no one is willing to do anything about it. It’s a complete pit.”

On Monday, Rance could not be reached for comment, and Whitzman said she had nothing to say about the charges. If convicted and given the maximum sentence, Whitzman and Rance could be sentenced to more than 20 years in jail and fined $13,500 each, but prosecutors said such maximum punishments are uncommon.

Authorities with the city’s Interagency Slum Housing Task Force took on the case after city health, fire and building and safety investigators looked into the tenant complaints and found numerous problems during March inspections. City attorneys decided to file the case after follow-up inspections in late May and June showed that Whitzman and Rance had done little or no repair work, Deputy City Atty. Stephanie Sautner said.

No charges are brought against many such landlords who make repairs after they are issued warnings, but Whitzman and Rance are being prosecuted because they made no significant repairs, said Sautner, head of the city attorney’s Housing Enforcement Unit.

“When we find landlords who collect the rent and don’t make repairs, the motivation is money,” said Sautner. “They’re greedy.”

Sautner said both buildings pose significant health and safety threats to residents.

Among the problems cited in the complaints: cockroach and rodent infestation, lack of heat, broken windows and screens, defective doors, damaged guardrails and missing handrails, missing and damaged smoke detectors, exposed live electrical wiring, defective uncapped natural gas piping, leaking faucets and loose toilets, peeling paint, defective fire sprinklers and doors, missing exit signs, defective fire hoses, accumulations of trash and debris on the premises and damaged and deteriorated walls, floors and ceilings.

Sautner also said authorities were concerned about the many “social problems” at the apartment complexes. She said tenant complaints about prostitutes and drug addicts in the hallways and on the roof were well-founded, and that the many children in the apartments played among discarded syringes, used condoms and potentially dangerous bottles and needles.

Authorities are also investigating allegations that Whitzman and Rance tried to raise rents, which average about $400 monthly, after being told to make the repairs, Sautner said. It is illegal for owners to raise the rent in such buildings after they have been deemed substandard by the city.

Sautner said city inspectors plan to revisit the buildings this week before the arraignment to determine whether any repair work has been done.

Whitzman was previously prosecuted by the Housing Enforcement Unit because of slum conditions at the same two buildings in 1987, when she was known as Dolores S. Michaelson, according to the city attorney’s office. Whitzman and another woman, Serena Perlin, were convicted in that case, placed on two years summary probation and ordered to pay $4,994 in fines and costs and repair the buildings, authorities said.

According to property records, Rance lives in a four-bedroom house with a pool south of Ventura Boulevard in Encino that is assessed for tax purposes as being worth more than $550,000. Whitzman is listed as the owner of a four-bedroom house in Tarzana, just north of the Braemar Country Club, assessed at more than $427,000.