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Sometimes bad things just happen, some jerk next door to yours, and thinks himself as a clever slum lord. And instead of doing the right thing he decides to do all kinds of unpermitted shoddy work on his property, putting you as a neighbor and his renters in danger. Electrical wires that are only a prayer away from sparking a fire department emergency, construction that for sure should not survive the next one. Or at worst, starts running a slum by having too many renters, or renters where they are not permitted such as a garage.

What I noticed is that this bothers many people, but they don't know what they can do about it. Renters who put up with living in a slum, or neighbors who tolerate it out of ignorance.

So here is a small list of things you can do.

Reporting Slum Lords

There are a lot of laws that protect you as a tenant, if your land lord is running a slum and they get cited for that, you can withhold rent until they fix it, you can move out without a 30 day notice, and so forth, provided you let them know about it. There are a lot of tenant protections. They are there to prevent slum-lordism and protect your human dignity. So don't let that benefit go to waste. Obviously try to figure it out with your landlord first to be a good citizen. But if your landlord is a bonehead who will not cooperate than here are your options:

- First take a lot of pictures if you are a tenant of what is uninhabitable, it has to be a health hazard such as cockroaches, dangerous electrical, bad plumbing, mold, etc...
- Next you contact your city department that handles this. In Los Angeles it is the Department of Code Enforcement, mention Civil Code 1942 and they'll send someone to inspect the property. Every city has a similar department, ask city clerk if you don't know what department is in your city that handles this.
- When inspectors get there, show them your list of habitability defects. If they are a problem, landlord will be cited and required to fix it within 2 - 60 days depending on severity. This gets very expensive, because if landlords fails to repair in a timely manner government will cut your rent and fine landlords for doing repairs via government contractors. They can even prosecute landlords criminally if they get out of line. No landlord (even the slummiest of the slime) wants to go down this route, it is not in their favor at any point.

Illegal construction

If you do not see a construction permit posted and notices, work is not done legally and may be potentially a fire hazard. That you can report to the local "Department of Building and Safety". Here is the Los Angeles link: http://www.permitla.org/csr/ ,

Every major city has such a department. Reporting a problem is just as simple as filling out a small form on internet with your information.

http://cris.lacity.org/cris/informationcenter/code/

Illegal dumping of construction trash

If someone decides to run construction on a cheap and dumps all their trash onto public land. It is your taxes that will go into fixing it, and it is your school that will miss out of additional funding. Report these criminals. And you can report those people, government will even reward you for doing so:

To report illegal dumping in the city of Los Angeles, for other cities just do a google search or contact your county clerk:
http://bss.lacity.org/InvestigationAndEnforcement/Illegal_Dumping_Banner.htm