My friend asked me how do I evict a tenant? This is the story. The tenant has lived in his apartment building for 5 years now and is paying way less than newer tenants. The tenant also has cats. We don’t allow cats on the property but she got a doctor’s note saying that her cats were for medical purposes. Whatever, fine. So we have to let her keep the cats. Anyways that’s not the problem. We went into her apartment after giving her 24 hours notice to repair her toilet that she called to say was not working. When we went in, we saw file boxes everywhere that were overflowing with her stuff. Her laundry was thrown everywhere and dirty clothes were overflowing out of the hamper. Her bed was unmade with the mattress showing. There did not appear to be any pests. There was lots of junk that looks like she took it out of the trash and into her apartment. Dressers with paint chipped, missing wheels, 2 TVs unplugged just sitting there, and lots of cans and bottles. Now I don’t if she took this stuff out of the trash, but it looks pretty bad. My question is can my friend evict her? Can a landlord evict a tenant for being messy in Los Angeles?
Can my friend evict her? Does anyone know of a landlord who has successfully evicted someone for being messy in Los Angeles?
I do not recommend that your friend tries to evict her. California has very strict tenant rights laws (i.e. the “left” coast). You can not just kick someone out for having a different standard of living than you or your friend. You can evict her if she is breaking the law or causing a health hazard and even then you would have to serve her a notice and then grant her time to correct the situation.
There is no way you would win that case in front of a California judge.
Do what you have to do RIGHT or do not do it at all.
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