Paying full cost for Section 8 when you aren't Section 8.

[Brian Bullard]

Hello. I have a question about renting in a Section 8 property. Our credit is not great and we found a landlord that was willing to let us live in their Section 8 apartment in Long Beach, California, on the condition that we pay the full cost of the monthly rent, so $1800 instead of $900 a month. In exchange, we get to forego the credit check. He added that if someone came knocking on our door asking how much we pay a month, that we should ignore them and not answer any questions that they have because they do not apply to us as tennants. It later turned out that the tennants living below us are super sensitive to noises, or that the apartments are poorly built and amplify sound in the apartment below us. We are not as noisy as they are claiming we are, and they have never actually called the police (I imagine because there is nothing that they could do, or because the landlord asked them not to). We got a message from him the other day asking us to leave voluntarily, to which we responded that we would not, and that we intended on staying for the full extent of our lease. We contacted the RPA to try and resolve the issue, but we are curious if there is something shady going on and what else we can do to legally protect ourselves.