In this world of Los Angeles where persons buy up properties then do them up and rent them at crazy prices. I now have personal knowledge of the way this can go.
Over a month ago we the tenants were informed our building had been sold, the new persons had looked at the place during the pandemic and were going ahead with their evil plans. At the time we the tenants were unaware of what the evil plan was. During the lockdown it wasn’t easy to evict tenants so we figured there was some time before we would have to be evicted. And it’s not allowed to mess directly with the tenants (cutting off electrics and water).
So the plan goes like this, you say you’re going to do a retrofit for earthquakes to bring the building up to standards. Then you hire a company to do the retrofit. Seems normal and even though it is annoying there isn’t much the tenants can do when the permits have been approved.
Then what you do is the crafty bit, you fence off the parking so you have to find street parking when everybody and their cousin is home during a Pandemic and then NOTHING! It’s been over a month and the parking is the same since the day they fenced it in.
The company who is aiding the persons who bought the building in behaving like ass holes is https://www.optimumseismic.com.
I have called them, first time I called they said the work would take six weeks and not twelve, even though on their website they say it takes about three, this is not a big building! The second time I called and asked when they would be starting the work again they just put me off with some BS and never got back to me. I was surprised a company would be so complicit in helping to kick tenant out of their homes. Some have been in this building for more than thirty years. I have heard people say it’s just business, I disagree and the people being forced from their home would agree with me.
Greed has been kicking out the tenants in Los Angeles for years, the people who lived and work in Los Angeles when people think of it in its heyday have all but left. I am leaving soon as I am done with the BS and dirty streets, lack of empathy from the people who run the city. I am lucky that I can and I have somewhere to go. But many are not as lucky and having to do this during a Pandemic makes it just a bit more stressful.
I don’t know what Los Angeles will look like in years to come. I see lots of fancy apartments with lots of apartments vacant as regular people cannot afford the money they are asking. Maybe it will end up like a Chinese Ghost City.
