Posted by Tafornia on 5/27/08

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I'm renting a house, that has a detached garage tenant. When
I signed on, LL told me there was a person living there, and
that sometimes her mail was mis-delivered, and to take it
back to her mailbox affixed to the door on the garage, which
I did daily. Being from out of state, I didn't realize that
this was an illegal garage conversion, until I read about
some children dying in a garage fire in Long Beach at
Christmastime.

This woman would freely come up front to the house and get
into my mailbox, so I installed a locking mailbox, then she
came banging on my door to get the key. I complained to the
LL and filed a USPS mail theft complaint - some of my mail
went missing. LL finally installed yet another mailbox on
the gate outside of my house for her. (total of 3 mailboxes
now.) Another thing, LL gets HIS mail here too! Bank
statements, mortgage, phone bills, you name it. It would
appear that he is hiding his real address from creditors.

I'm paying the utilities on this garage-house - have been
for over a year - to the landlord, who gives me copies of
the bills. I reported the illegal conversion to the Los
Angeles code enforcement last December, and they can't get
ahold of the LL - he won't respond to any inspection
appointments nor any communications. I have met with and
talked with the code inspectors myself, when LL failed to
show for 2 separate inspection appointments. LA Code
Enforcement finally (after five months) wrote LL a demand
letter to inspect or else a few weeks ago. It would appear
the garage-person is moving out today.

Is there any compensation to be had from this on my end?
Past utility payments, mail issues, etc.?

Landlord had illegal garage conversion - I'm paying Utils, 5/27/08, by Tafornia.

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