Letters to the Editor: My L.A. apartment gets dangerously hot. How is this legal?

To the editor: I have to laugh at the statewide Flex Alert urging citizens to set their thermostats at 78 degrees or higher. As I write this, it’s 91 degrees in my Los Feliz apartment. That’s after running the living room air conditioner for four hours.

The problem? The 1926 building is poorly insulated. Plus, the attic space spanning the building is super-heated to 170 degrees on days like this. That’s a hellish blanket laid on top of my unit.

Recently, I requested both street trees as well as attic fans to ventilate the baked air above me. The management company replied that this was not in the owner’s plans for the building.

California has residential heating standards; it now desperately needs cooling standards as well. Assembly Bill 2597 would solve that. It would require statewide benchmarks for safe indoor temperatures. It needs to be passed.

Sure, I could go work at the nearby Starbucks. But my lease doesn’t say anything about the unit being habitable only during select days of the year. Plus, some of my work requires my desktop computer; the laptop won’t do.

Oh, did I mention that I’m a senior?

R. Daniel Foster, Los Angeles