Los Angeles rent control laws & a problem inherited tenant!

[Camille Joos-Visconti]

We bought a duplex last January & inherited a tenant. It’s a duplex lot but has 2 houses on it. I’ve had nothing but trouble with this tenant. They pay their rent on time. When purchasing the property, there was no security deposit. I wrote on the CAR lease agreement that I had him sign upon us taking over, that a deposit would be due on next lease. When lease was up a year later; he sneakily paid the next months rent online early, I didn’t catch it in time, and it turned into a month to month agreement. I advised him that per our agreement on the lease he now owed his security deposit since the initial term was over, and he found a one word loophole in the wording “next lease” and he delivered me a letter that his lawyer coworker friend wrote on legal letterhead, defending why he didn’t have to pay a deposit! He insisted his deposit was a fridge. I don’t want your dirty fridge!! The letter was full of incorrect info and a few lies, such as that 2 letters were also mailed to me (weren’t) and when I tried to approach the tenant immediately after opening the hand delivered letter, he hid from me! Wouldn’t answer the door, my calls, emails or texts. Finally got one email back telling me to call his lawyer if he had any questions. Then he hid in his house for 3 months avoiding all contact if me or my family were outside. Because they have lived here for 4-5 years, they are extremely entitled to what they consider “ours” and “theirs”. A few months later (2 days ago) we delivered a 3 day notice to adhere to lease agreement, stating he needed to clean up the communal yard area and store his ladders and junk elsewhere. He emailed a reply that said it was his area not ours, and that we needed to get our stuff off his area first! He has trash piling up behind the unit, old tires & hazardous ladders that my husband has tripped on numerous times. As far as I’m concerned, he rents the house, the garage & the driveway & we own & have the land all around both houses both garages and both driveways. The lease doesn’t state anything about him having a front or back yard, it says the communal patio and garden space needs to be kept clean. There is a rod iron fence with gate, separating the houses because there is a pool behind our house & we have dogs. Does that mean that automatically the other side is “his”?? Now I’m waiting for another lawyer letter to be hand delivered to me and much more stress to follow, again..... We also get complaint letters about noise, yard work, he states that anything we do “puzzles him” as if we are doing it to try to annoy him, and complains non stop about this and that, he emailed them to us AND certified mails them to us. I feel like since its rent control and very tenant friendly here, anything we do can be misconstrued or I can be sued for it. We have 3 small kids and am pregnant with #4. This is our home. And this PITA man lives on it with us. I could cry. We are low on funds but I just can’t take this guy anymore. Not to mention he is within a stones throw of our house, (our other house is just a few feet from ours on the same lot) & he completely creeps me out- I don’t even feel comfortable letting my children out to play in our yard in case this weirdo is outside or walks by- and I never go inside without my husband being there as I feel like he undresses me with his eyes. It’s been commented on several times by others who have met him as well. He has spoken about bringing his gun out to threaten our neighbors barking dogs- well he’s not allowed to have guns per the lease but there’s no way I can prove that he told me this! He terrifies me. Long story short, I don’t know what to do. I think I need a lawyer at this point. I don’t know where to find one that specializes in rent control laws, as the research i have done already all the lawyer sites around here say they help the “poor tenants affected by horrible landlords”. Well, I’m the “poor landlord affected by a terrible tenant!”. Do I get a lawyer & figure out some way to pay them? I’m broke at the moment :(. The income pays the mortgage here, & my husband supports our family of 6, and he has been out of work for 6 months so we are very low on funds.... Do we hire a property management company to deal with him and he can send his complaints to them and they can deal with his lawyer letters and legal letters he’s getting from his lawyer friend (for free, so he isn’t even having to pay a lawyer for help...but of course I would have to pay because I don’t have a lawyer friend...) and the PM co can deal with him until they can get him out? Any advise would be great. I’m in dire need of any help or advice at this point 😩. I’ve read there are only 12 reasons I can evict under RSO guidelines and I don’t think he falls into any of the reasons. I feel scared having him on our families residence property right next to us and the stress I’m dealing with from him while I’m pregnant none the less, is completely overwhelming. We definitely learned our lesson on never buying a property that has a tenant still in it, but in the meantime I need to figure out what the heck to do. Thanks for reading.

[Anthony Hurlburt]

If he is now of month to month why don't you just give him proper notice that you are terminating his month to month agreement and get him out that way?