What to tell possible tenants about sex offender in area
Question: I own a rental home for which I am seeking tenants. A neighbor just informed me that a nearby house for sale recently fell out of escrow when the buyer learned that a registered sex offender lives on the block. My five-bedroom home, which is ideal for a family with children, is in the best school district in the area, but I’m afraid if I disclose information about the sex offender I’ll never be able to rent the place. On the other hand, I can’t imagine not disclosing it to a family with children. What do you advise?
Answer: Your question got my interest, so I went onto the Megan’s Law website to take a look for myself. I was surprised. My Whittier ZIP Code lists 30 registered offenders. Of the about 50 ZIP Codes that I checked, which included many exclusive areas across L.A. County, only one in Beverly Hills had no registered offenders. One ZIP had 84. Apparently, almost no neighborhood in the state is completely safe.
There is no easy answer to your question because of the ambiguity of the language in the original Megan’s Law bill, AB 488. (This ambiguity is also why 21 bills have been introduced in Sacramento to amend the law.)
Owners are required to inform prospective renters of apartments about the Megan’s Law website at www.megans law.ca.gov. There are no different requirements for the rental of single-family homes. That is all the law requires.
If driveway is safe, it needn’t be clean
Question: The new owners of the Los Angeles apartment building in which I live don’t hose down the driveway and carport areas. The gardener comes twice a month and blows the dirt around, but there is still a lot of dirt, oil from cars, leaves and the like. The Housing Department said he does not have to sweep or wash down the driveway. Is there anything I can do?
Answer: Apartment owners are required to keep common areas safe for their tenants and the general public, but they do not have to keep them clean. In fact, several years ago when there were drought conditions, apartment owners were prohibited from washing down decks and driveways by some local governments, including Los Angeles.
If it’s a big problem for you, you might ask the owner if he would mind if you offered to pay the gardener a little extra every month to do the job. He probably wouldn’t allow you to do it yourself because of the potential liability he would face if you were to get hurt “on the job.”
Peeling paint has to be repaired
Question: In a previous column you wrote that California Civil Code section 1941.1 requires a landlord to maintain a rental in a habitable condition, but it does not require him to renovate an apartment for an existing tenant. Specifically, you wrote, “painting and re-carpeting are aesthetic issues that are not covered by the code.” Now the city of Los Angeles Housing Department has inspected my building and is requiring that I repaint an apartment with chipped and peeling paint. Can it do that?
Answer: Paint color is an aesthetic issue. Chipped and peeling paint is not. It has to be fixed. The places where the paint is chipped and peeling must, at a minimum, be sanded down and repainted.
You are not necessarily required to paint the entire unit, but you must take care of the spots where the paint is coming off. Generally, if the paint is chipped and peeling, it is pretty old.
Even though it’s not required, I recommend repainting the entire unit. If you don’t, you’ll probably be dealing with the same chipped and peeling paint issue again in a year or two.
Postema is the editor of Apartment Age magazine, a publication of AAGLA, an apartment owners’ service group. E-mail your questions on any aspect of apartment living to aptlifeaagla@aol.com, c/o Kevin Postema, or mail to AAGLA, c/o Kevin Postema, 621 S. Westmoreland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90005.
