Exploring the tenant-landlord relationship

Last summer, Ivan Valdez was finished with his fourth year at UCLA and ready to leave his Westwood apartment.

But Valdez soon became one of many students in Westwood who face conflict while trying to navigate their way through leases, security deposits and other technicalities of life as a tenant.

Valdez, who graduated last year with a degree in anthropology, was paying $1,050 per month for a studio on Gayley Avenue. But when he moved out, he found that his landlord had listed a number of reasons for keeping the majority of his deposit, many of which he felt were unfair.

Valdez is not alone when it comes to sticky encounters with property managers, as many student renters look to recover their safety deposits, request faster repairs, and maintain amiable relations with their landlords.

While student tenants’ complaints often center around unruly landlords, managers also face a plethora of problems ““ noise disturbances, vandalism, and damaged property ““ when renting to short-term tenants.

Fighting for money

Valdez decided to take action when his landlord kept the majority of his deposit.

“The itemized list didn’t really make any sense at all,” Valdez said.

The deposit for the apartment was $1,160, and the owner had deducted $724.80 from that amount, Valdez said.

The landlord charged $250 to repaint the whole apartment and $216.85 to replace the bathroom floor because of a stain from Valdez’s bath mat, he said.

Another $100 was charged to replace window cracks, shower curtains, and to re-chalk the bathtub.

Valdez said he believed the owner had taken out money beyond what was necessary and was essentially refurbishing the apartment at his expense.

“I wanted to take it to small claims court, but (the property owner) was almost impossible to get a hold of,” he said.

Though Valdez interacted with his property manager, he had little knowledge about the owner of the building.

Valdez had trouble getting her name and information to file the claim, and he ended up finding it by visiting the county assessor’s office, which deals with property issues in Los Angeles.

“Small claims court was a huge, elaborate ordeal,” Valdez said. “The judge wants to move it along … he didn’t want to hear everything.

“(The judge) sided with me on the painting and some of the other refurbishing things that I got charged for.”

Valdez, who had sued for $464.80, won $280 from the courts.

“He didn’t side with me about the bath mat,” Valdez said.

The effort took several months.

“It wasn’t even about the money ““ it was the principle,” he said.

The life of a property manager

But as students struggle to assert their rights as tenants, landlords and property managers face their own problems with student renters.

Property managers and landlords must work with students who are first-time renters and often throw parties and create disturbances.

Jennifer Rafanan is the assistant manager at Strathmore Regency, where approximately 40 to 50 percent of the units are rented by students.

“When you’re managing a building with students, they tend to be more needy,” she said. “It’s their first time being in an apartment … they don’t understand that we’re just managers.”

Rafanan said students are used to on-campus housing where they have people to go to for issues like roommate problems.

“(The) majority of it is petty roommate problems. A roommate came down to put a written formal complaint that her roommate stole her loaf of bread and her aluminum foil,” she said.

Like many property managers in Westwood, Rafanan lives in the building that she manages.

“I try not to let them known where I live, and they always find out,” she said.

Living on-site saves money and a commute, but while Rafanan generally likes the experience, she said Westwood can get crazy at times.

“Weekends I do get disturbed … it’s the neighborhood, (students) drunk running up and down screaming,” she said.

Students, landlords clash

The noise and parties that are typical of a college town create more than just disturbances for live-in property managers.

Kaitlyn Walker, a fourth-year English and Italian student, moved into her first apartment the summer after her sophomore year.

Walker said the first week after she and her roommates moved in, they had a party with a small group of friends.

“It’s not like we were being loud,” she said. “I don’t think I had that much music on.”

But by 12:45 a.m., the property manager had called the police on them, she said.

The next day, the landlord’s husband told Walker and her roommate they had been very loud and that people were walking around drinking, Walker said.

“He told me that we have to leave right away … they gave us a month’s notice,” she said.

Walker agreed to leave of her own accord and signed a document that said they were terminating their lease ““ or else they would be evicted, a notation that could potentially make renting difficult in the future.

“The landlords made it pretty clear they didn’t want us there. They told my friend they didn’t want me there,” she said.

Several blocks away on Kelton Avenue, Renee Lizarraga, a fourth-year English and history student, also ran into some difficulties with her property manager.

Lizarraga said the property manager told her and her roommate they could only get one copy of the lease, and asked them to sign a document verifying they would only ask for that one copy.

Lizarraga said she thought it was strange because at her previous apartment, she and her three roommates had each received a copy of the lease and had never had to sign a form like that before.

Lizarraga also said she had problems with apartment maintenance, such as the timely repair of a leaky faucet.

Not all students struggle

After Walker was asked to leave her apartment on Glenrock Avenue, she moved to a complex on Veteran Avenue, where she said the rent is relatively cheap and the landlord is nice.

“Sometimes it’s loud because it’s all college students living here,” she said.

“If people are loud, other people will go and knock on each other’s door and tell them to bring it down. … No one ever has to bring the landlady into it.”

One block east on Strathmore Drive, fourth-year geography and environmental science student Henry DeBey reports having no trouble renting while at UCLA.

“My experience with my landlord has been really, really good,” he said.

The owner of his building owns several other complexes in the area.

“We’re not really good about paying rent on time,” he said. “We have never paid a fine, and we usually pay halfway through the month and it’s not a problem.”

DeBey said his property manager does not enforce many of the rules he legally can based on the lease, but he and his roommates also refrain from throwing large parties.

“We have a deal where we don’t abuse the place, so he appreciates that,” DeBey said.

But DeBey noted that he has not dealt with the more daunting task that Valdez had trouble with.

“I haven’t gotten through the process yet of trying to get my security deposit back,” DeBey said. “I’ve heard from people in Westwood that it’s almost impossible to get your (full) deposit back.”

With reports from Shaudee Navid and Jennifer Mishory, Bruin senior staff.