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The home I"m renting is rat infested. What are my rights?
Anonymous3 views2 answers
Home is part of large higher end rental community. I pay almost 2000.00 a month for an 1100 sq ft home. 6 month lease with 3 months remaining. About 6 weeks into the lease I started having serious rat issues. Eaten food in my kitchen, etc. Since then they've removed 6 dead rats from INSIDE my home and located a large rats nest in a deadspace in my kitchen. EVery morning I wake up to rat crap. They've removed the traps from inside my home because I think they don't want to deal with this anymore. The rats are HUGE. I have pictures of several of them and of eaten fruitbowls. Refuse to clean my carpets or furniture unit they get this under control but telling me they've done their best. They want a 30 day notice to break my lease. But moving soon presents a hardship for me. HELP
If the landlord won't do anything, you may contact the local health and safety agency like the code enforcement department to have someone come out to the property to inspect the property for health and safety violation. Vermins or rodents are among the conditions listed on Health and Safety Code 17923 which render the property unihabitable.
Based upon what you've described and if you can present the photographs you've taken, or if you can set the mouse trap a day before he shows up and there is a dead rat on the mouse trap, he will probably issue a citation to the landlord. Landlord has 35 days to correct the problem or waive their right to demand rent from you.
That should get their attention, hopefully.
So it really depends on how bad things are, but as you described they don't sound very good. My colleague has a good idea in calling the local building or health department and getting the landlord cited. That is good evidence for court. If that happens follow up with a letter demanding to get a competent exterminator out there or you will do it yourself and deduct it from the rent. You could also start deducting rent because you are at the end of your term and it would probably take him 3 months to get you evicted with an unlawful detainer. If they did that then you could defend based on breach of warranty of habitability, freedom from vermin is one of the basic provisions of the code. At trial a jury or court could make deductions from the amount of rent owed based on how bad it was and if you had an attorney's fee provision you could stick them with the bill if you won.
Have you thought about getting a cat?
Hope that helps and good luck.
