Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Can a manager hang up the phone?

If threats are being made against your life, you have to do something a lot more assertive than make ineffectual complaints to a manager that hangs up on you.

I would suggest talking to the owner and to the police, for starters. The manager may not care, but the property owner might be liable to you (or your heirs) if anything happens to you because of his negligence to a safety problem, so he might be more concerned for your safety.

You should gather evidence that might assist the police in evaluating and understanding the risk to you.

Re: Can a manager hang up the phone?

You have rights, but first things first. You need to make sure you're safe. You should report the threats to the police. If the threats are a repeated event, you should consider going to court and getting a restraining order. This will put the police and judicial system on notice that this already is a problem. If the threats persist, you can get the court to find this person in contempt of a court order.

Then, you need to start building a case against your landlord/owner for failure to keep the premises safe, including taking reasonable measures to protect tenants such as you from foreseeable assault by other tenants. The actions above will help in that case. Certainly, any injury to you now was foreseeable b/c you have put managment on notice of the problem. In addition, the managment's failure to investigate or remedy the problem is evidence of their negligence.

If you can afford an attorney, I would suggest you retain one to get the restraining order and put the landlord/owner on formal notice. If not, you should contact a local landlord/tenant mediation service. But, please contact the police and lodge a complaint regarding the threats. If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me at 310-385-8620.