NORTHRIDGE : Students Protest Living Conditions

Cal State Northridge senior Jennifer Picard claims that she endured some version of the plagues of Egypt each time she switched rooms at the privately owned Northridge Campus Residence.

“I went from rats to cockroaches to hornets,” Picard said. “Then I came back from vacation and my room was flooded.”

To protest what they call poor living conditions, about 50 tenants waved signs at passing cars and yelled “Slumlord!” Friday in front of the three-building complex. The students said they are especially angry about a plumbing repair that has left one building without water during the day since February.

Junior Saul Colover said the students want a month’s back rent as compensation for living with leaky pipes and poor security--and without showers and flushing toilets for much of each day.

But Carmi Cohen, senior vice president of G & K Management, which owns the complex at 9700 Zelzah Ave., said shutting off water is the only way to fix rusted pipes and contends that he’s been “more than generous” by offering students $300 certificates to charge against next year’s rent.

“Our prices are extremely competitive. I do not deny there may be some deprivation, it’s the degree . . . the level of suffering is very minute,” Cohen said.

Students said it’s more than a minute inconvenience to go without water from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. some days and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on others. Colover said most residents will have moved out by next year and can’t use the certificates.

“Some people here have gone two days without a shower,” he said.

Picard said she moved from one room, where she found a live rat under the sink, to another infested with cockroaches to one where the air conditioner emitted hornets, and has concluded that the building is unfit for habitation.

Responding to a student’s complaint, the Los Angeles County Health Department last week inspected the building and compiled a list of about 20 violations, most of them--including holes in the walls and water damage to ceilings and carpets--related to the plumbing work, said Manny Schweid, director of the department’s housing and institutions program.

Schweid said G & K Management has been notified that it must complete the repairs and correct the violations by May 17 or face enforcement proceedings.

Building manager Francine Rich said the repairs should be complete in about a week.