Landlord must fess up about pest chemicals

Question: I have severe breathing problems and need to know what chemicals the new property owner’s pest service is using. She says she doesn’t have to provide this information. I think fair housing laws cover my disability and she needs to honor my request. What do you think?

Answer: If the property owner has a contract for regular or periodic pest control service, California Civil Code 1940.8 and Business and Professions Code Section 8538 requires that she supply tenants with chemical information about the products being used on the property. This should contain the name of the pest to be controlled, and the pesticide or pesticides (along with the active ingredients). It must also include general contact information such as telephone numbers for the pest control company and the county health department, as well as the number and address of the local structural pest control board.

The pest-control service can provide this information to the landlord or yourself by first-class mail, deliver it personally or post it in a conspicuous place on the property.

Nearly blind tenant asks a favor

Question: One of the tenants in the complex I manage has lost almost 90% of his eyesight. He has requested that the notices and bulletins posted on the community activity board be written in a larger print. The tenant groups and clubs prepare these notices.

I only approve the notices for posting. What is the legal requirement to accommodate this tenant? What about notices I have to serve him? Do they have to be in large print?

Answer: Under the federal Fair Housing Act and the state’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, you are required to provide reasonable accommodation for any tenant who has a disability. Your tenant’s loss of eyesight creates a physical impairment that requires you to make a reasonable accommodation for him in the services available to all tenants.

This may include receiving information other tenants get from the community bulletin board.

Before making any changes in your practices, you do have the right to request a medical provider’s certification that larger print will accommodate his disability. You are required only to make changes in rules and policies that are reasonable and that will give your disabled tenant access to the same information and services other tenants have.

As the person who approves notices for postings, you could make a rule that all notices be in large print, and then don’t approve notices that do not comply. You would also be required to increase the size of the print on written notices that you serve to this tenant.

This clause can’t be in the fine print

Question: One of my tenants says the renewal clause of his lease agreement is not valid. My leases provide for an automatic renewal if the tenant does not vacate at the end of the lease term. This tenant did not move out.

The tenant says that because a new lease was not signed, he became a month-to-month tenant and plans to move soon. Are automatic renewal clauses allowed?

Answer: An automatic renewal clause is valid only if the renewal or extension provision is printed in at least 8-point boldface type, immediately above the place where the tenant signs the lease.

This requirement, detailed in Civil Code 1945.5, is to ensure that a tenant is fully aware of the rental obligation they are about to undertake.

If your lease agreement meets this requirement, then the clause is valid. Of course, if it doesn’t, then the tenant can also disregard it.

This column is prepared by Project Sentinel, a rental housing mediation service in Sunnyvale, Calif. Questions may be sent to 1055 Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road, Suite 3, Sunnyvale, CA 94087, but cannot be answered individually. For housing discrimination questions, complaints or help, call the state Department of Fair Housing and Employment at (800) 233-3212 or the Southern California Housing Rights Center at (800) 477-5977.