Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California
I have a question regarding my current living situation. My roommate and I currently live in a lower/basement 2 bedroom unit that is attached to a garage. Our landlord and his family of 6 other people live upstairs. The apartment has two windows. One in the front bedroom, that faces a blocked off hallway, and one in the back bedroom. We also have a backdoor that gives us access to the yard. I am assuming that due to the poor circluation in the unit, we have had mold growth on our clothes that we keep both in our clothes and in our drawers. We also have a black mold growing on the walls and tiles in our bathroom. The landlord suggested that we keep the windows open, and that should clear up our mold problem, but this did not work, especially since it is winter, and San Francisco gets a lot of rain in the winter.
Also, the unit has no heating, when we brought this up to the landlord, they gave us two space heaters for each of our rooms. We noticed that by keeping the heater on, the mold seemed to subside. So, we've been keeping the heaters on low both to try to get some heat in the unit and to stop the mold.
For some reason, our apartment does not have an address of its own, so we share a mailbox with the landlord. We also do not have our own meters, so the landlord gives us a total to pay each month for utilities. We usually pay around $25 - 35 dollars for power, but this month they are asking us to pay $90 out of a $134 power bill. It seems unfair to pay more than half of the bill when there are only 2 of us and 7 people living upstairs. It seems unlikely that they haven't turned up their heat since it has gotten cold. Plus, they have given us no other solution to our mold problem except to keep our windows and doors open, which we can't do while we are gone, especially since we are on the ground floor.
I don't know if I need to take legal action, but the apartment is not working out for either of us. Do you have any suggestions. Is there a way to get out of the lease and get our security deposit back without paying a large fee.
3 Answers from Attorneys
As a landlord I absolutely hate the zealots at the San Francisco Tenants Union even without owning any units in San Francisco. It's just a matter of principal. Unfortunately it's dirtball landlords like yours who give outfits like the SFTU a genuine reason to exist. www.sftu.org They should be of great help to you.
Mr. McCormick is correct on all of his points. A landlord must supply heat for a unit; the bathroom must have a window or other method of venting to the outside. The unit is probably illegal and certainly in violation of local regulations. You also have rent contro;l protection.
The tenant's union probably can give you the best advice. You could leave and get your full deposit back because if is an illegal unit and you have been constructively evicted by the mold problem. You could stay and get the heatint bill reduced. If it really is a black mold, your heath is being threatened [not every growth is black mold] and you should leave ASAP.
My colleagues are right except for the comment about the SF Tenants Union, their great people. Sounds like you are living in an illegal unit and have statutory habitability issues. I'd ask your landlord to see the occupancy certificate and that should get him worried, because I bet he doesn't have one and he needs one!
As to your situation sounds what do you want to do? Stay or move out. If you want to move then you could stop paying the rent then he would have to evict you. That would get you into court where you could get help from the Eviction Defense Collaborative ( more zealots and nice people depending on your view) and the San Francisco Bar Association Volunteer Legal Service Program. If you want to stay then you need to discuss theses issues with your LL and see what he is willing to do to fix the situation. It will cost him money to evict you and generally in a settlement in return for leaving the LL waives the back rent . So these are some reasons why he may want to make a deal with you now, if not make him take you to court as you will do better than he will.
Good luck
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