Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

My apartment building has an issue with a peeping tom and the management does not seem to think that it is their responsibility to keep him from getting on top of the detached garages (where he then looks into the windows of young girls on the second floor). What legal responsibility does the management have to resolve this issue? It has happened four times and is not a one time thing by any means, it has been going on for almost a year.


Asked on 2/11/11, 9:48 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Brian Rosales Harris, Rosales & harris

The general rule is that the landlord has no duty to protect tenants from crime. The tenants, like everbody else, have the right and duty to protect themselves from bad people. There are exceptions to this rule when the criminal behavior is foreseeable and the landlord can do something about it that is not too burdensome (typically this means what the measures would cost the landlord versus how effective any measures would be). This may be the case here depending on what it would take to prevent people form accessing the tops of the garages. These things are determined on a case by case basis.

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Answered on 3/12/11, 9:59 am


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