by Contessa Abono
Landlord keeps tenants in precarious situation Willaim Villalta feeds his 4-month baby, Mariana, in their small room. Below, looking over the roof, he shows El Reportero the house he rents in. where his landlord stores his personal items in the garage. (photos by Stephen Morrison)
In a crowded building in the Mission District, more than 20 people who make up the families who live there sighed in relieve when the city of San Francisco turned their gas services back on after a month without it. This happiness was short lived.
The tenants say the owners have not provided heat, have shut off the water services, gas and garbage pickup to the building, and have threatened to shut off the electric service.
Building owner Larry Wong has also allowed the shut off of gas service leaving tenants without heat and hot water. To date gas service has not been restored.
Philip O’Brien the tenant’s attorney says the tenants have been paying their utilities on time. However, he says, “they have went without gas for one month. That means not hot water and no oven.”
O’Brien also pointed out to El Reportero, that there are children living in the building, including three newborns and seven children living there.
One of the tenants William Villalta says that the living conditions at the building are terrible. He says he has been fixing broken windows and doing work around the house because the landlord would never do it.
“The landlord always says he has no money or no time to fix anything, and that he won’t even pay our gas bill. But he is the first one at the door for his money when rent is due,” says Villalta.
Apparently rooms in the basement were being rented four of five people to a room, but since the rainstorms of December and January, the basement has flooded over from leaking pipes and sewage.
According to Villalta none of the tenants had complained to the city, and the city inspectors were not involved until neighbors had begun to complain about the garbage that was piling up.
“This is the worst case I have ever seen,” says O’Brien. “The city inspectors finally came in and turned the gas on when they came on Christmas eve but now since it has been turned off again, the city has been dragging their feet.”
Now that both parities have lawyers involved, the tenants hope the situation will improve. “The landlord sees us as immigrants. We come to the U.S. with no papers to work, no credit cards, so he thinks he can do this to us,” says Villalta.
The property is a 12 unit residential hotel of singleroom occupancy, a former two-fl at building that was divided and rented as rooms to multiple unrelated tenants by owners since 1999.
The residents generally resided at the property for 3 to 5 years with some living in non-conforming basement and attic space, while paying rent directly to the owner. “It’s like the landlord doesn’t care about this building, it could be a nice place if he would fix it up,” says O’Brien.
At press time, Wong did not return calls to comment on the situation.
