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Los Angeles ends strange rite of passage with new fridge law
https://archive.ph/CG0Eq https://archive.ph/CG0Eq
- testdummy13 10mo ago"Rite of passage" is a weird way of framing a horrendous system for renters.
- Simulacra 10mo agoSuch a strange and positives twist on such a basic....necessity. Maybe an Intern writing assignment
- didgetmaster 10mo agoSo the law requires a fridge be provided, but doesn't state what kind. So now renters can expect to move into an apartment with a tiny, old fridge that does not suit their needs. Then they have to find a different fridge that will hold more than a half gallon of milk, as well as find a place to store the provided, unusable fridge until they move out.
- rtpg 10mo agoA thing I've experienced is people buying a bigger fridge, and then just leaving it when they move out because they're moving to a place with a fridge that is fine (for example, moving in with someone who has a nice fridge). Everyone walks away from that basically fine.
- WheatMillington 10mo agoEspecially the landlord who got a free fridge updgrade.
- hypeatei 10mo agoYeah, it seems like mandating transparency here would be better. I've never moved into an apartment that didn't have a fridge, but if the landlord wasn't providing one before, I can't imagine they'll spend on a nice one now.
- themafia 10mo agoUniquely you are allowed, as a renter, to turn down the refrigerator and bring your own if you agree at the signing of the lease. The landlord can't make this a condition but can accept it as a modification. The bill is very poorly written and under specified. The only restriction is that the unit itself not be under any manufacturer recall.
- pseudohadamard 10mo agoFirst versions of laws expected to meet significant resistance usually are. So you make v1 as vague as possible to get it passed, then once everyone is used to it and agrees it needs fixing, pass the v2 law you actually wanted to pass originally.
- rconti 10mo agoI mean, if the lack of a refrigerator is a uniquely Los Angeles thing, it seems like you could just predict what will happen based on what happens in _every other city_....
- mc32 10mo agothey could do like germany where most apartment/flat kitchens are bare --the renter needs to bring their own appliances and furnishings. this means fewer appliances and kitchen stuff gets mistreated by the renters since they own them. kinda sucks to move apartments though. as to why... german renter/lessee culture prefers having their own stuff to give it a more homey feel, i guess.
- actionfromafar 10mo agoMistreatment can be handled in the contract.
- rendx 10mo agoI've lived in Germany for four decades with plenty of moving around, and have yet to move into a place where a kitchen was not either provided or left there from the previous tenant (sometimes with a more symbolic compensation; it's not worth to rip it out since it often only fits that particular place anyway so there is pressure to give it away cheaply).
- rstuart4133 10mo agoThat's your story. Here's mine. My daughter moved out of an apartment in Hamburg. The fridges, washing machines, beds or whatever I can understand. They are designed to be installed after the building is complete. What blew me away was being forced to remove the ceiling lights, and leaving the live wires dangling down. Don't underestimate the difficulty of doing this for someone who has to do it after working hours. You switch off the power of course, which leaves you in total darkness. Naturally I had not thought of that little complication beforehand.
- crazygringo 10mo ago"Kinda sucks" is putting it lightly. It hugely sucks because things like fridges and stoves often need to fit the dedicated space in a kitchen exactly. The chances that your previous apartment and new apartment fit the same size appliances is virtually nil. This is why it makes sense for them to just be part of the apartment. I don't know what you mean by "mistreatment" -- anything in an apartment can be mistreated I suppose, it's not specific to appliances. If you damage anything, that comes out of your deposit. But I'm not really sure what there is specifically to damage about fridges and stoves? They get dirty and you can clean them. They don't generally require any super-special treatment.
- Brian_K_White 10mo agoThere is no actual argument here that wouldn't apply exactly the same to the stove and the toilet. If an apartment has a shitty fridge, it simply is a less attractive, less valuable property. If you want full control over such details, you can buy instead of rent, or you can buy your own frdge and keep the original in a storage unit until you move. If that sounds stupid, I agree that would be stupid.
- GardenLetter27 10mo agoThis is happening in Barcelona now due to the rent controls - where they strip everything out to provide the absolute bare minimum since demand far exceeds supply but the prices are capped.
- monero-xmr 10mo agoWell of course. As rent control continues the failure is more obvious every year, so they try to socialism harder and mandate more things. As an owner you either convert to condo (if you can) and sell it, find some loophole, or just hold on as long as you can until they remove the rent control
- themafia 10mo agoUsing government monopoly to solve private monopoly has to be the goofiest idea we continually try. It's right up there with unions. You can't negotiate successfully against corruption. If the system has no competition than corruption almost always creeps in. Granted, it quickly solves some of the problem, but to act as if it is a sustainable solution is maddening.
- hn_acc1 10mo agoI guess you're right that if the CEO is too corrupt, unions will be ineffective.
- actionfromafar 10mo agoSo... how do we solve private monopoly?
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- monero-xmr 10mo agoFirst name an example of a private monopoly so we can debate one that truly exists and isolate the discussion to that one thing
- pjc50 10mo agoIn the UK the fridge isn't actually required but is "conventional" in unfurnished tenancy. So you have to check, and maybe spend extra effort shipping fridges and freezers about. Stoves .. anywhere which has done up the kitchen this century will have integrated oven plus stovetop of some sort.
- PebblesHD 10mo agoThats just… weird? Why would you want to use somebody else’s fridge? Like I get its a few hundred dollars but they last decades. The Samsung fridge I still have was the very first appliance I ever purchased when I moved out at 18. Added to the fact that basically no free-standing appliances are included with rentals here, other than clothes dryers which I also hate and swap for my own.
- xenospn 10mo agoWhy would you ever want the hassle of moving a refrigerator around if you’re only going to be somewhere for a couple of years? Not to mention the potential damage to the apartment you can accidentally cause by moving such a large appliance around.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- s5300 10mo ago[dead]
- toast0 10mo agoI've not rented in LA county, but everywhere I've rented and the three houses I've bought all came with a fridge. They're large and awkward to move, and they typically last a long time. Why would I want to move one? Might be nice to have a new one with no one else's mess, but they do clean up pretty fully when you take out all the shelves.
- stevage 10mo agoWe just bought a new fridge yesterday. We lugged our old one around between 5 different properties - 20 years old, still going strong. The big problem is that fridges are not a standard size, and hence the spaces in kitchens are not a standard size. So there's a good chance when you move it won't fit (ours only worked because it's so small - which also made moving it not too onerous). It's a much better result for everyone if the apartment/house has a fridge that perfectly fits the space. Also: >Why would you want to use somebody else’s fridge? This is a weird question. You're ok with using "someone else's" apartment, someone else's toilet even. But you draw the line at a fridge?
- lapetitejort 10mo agoI had a fridge slowly die on me. Previously I had hand-picked an amazing set of washer and dryers that I'm sure will last me decades. Then I searched for the perfect induction stove. Then a microwave with convection heating. I paid more than average for these appliances because I wanted them to last for a long time, and I spend a lot of time in the kitchen. So when it came time to buy a new fridge, I could not find a "premium" model. They all capped in price unless I bought a fridge larger than the standard size. I ended up buying a similar model to the previous, this time with a five year warranty. I'm confident it will die out soon, probably right after the warranty expires. Maybe because of the fact that it's running 24/7? In short, I don't like shopping for fridges, and I'm glad fewer Angelinos will have to.
- ReptileMan 10mo agoFridges are really easy to repair and it is not as if we have made breakthroughs in compressor and insulation technology in last 15 years. You could probably jury rig control board from esp32 and weekend of coding - i mean it is couple of thermocouples and pid or bang bang algorithm.
- givemeethekeys 10mo agoMan, I can't wait to get to the point where I can call anything electrical "easy".
- dragonwriter 10mo ago“Los Angeles ends”... and its actually a state law, not any action by Los Angeles at all.
- stevage 10mo ago> Unlike most of the country, or even many other cities in California, Los Angeles renters are often responsible for buying and installing their own refrigerators
- IAmBroom 10mo agoSo the State of California ended something that Los Angelos had to endure.
- phyzome 10mo agoYeah, I was wondering about that. Perhaps LA was the largest city in CA that didn't have its own ordinance on this?
- chris_armstrong 10mo agoNo where in Australia would you expect a fridge to be supplied as part of a tenancy. It does restrict what you can buy, as may removalists will not touch move a fridge if there’s too many stairs or if you can’t get it in the door
- throwyawayyyy 10mo agoInteresting! I've never seen a flat rental in the UK without a fridge (washing machine mostly yes too, depending; dishwasher mostly not).
- netsharc 10mo agoGermany: the whole kitchen. Quite how a tenant would take a custom-made kitchen from an old to a new apartment, I don't know. (Not sure if it's still a common thing, last decade it was, but I lived in places where the kitchen stayed with the apartment).
- stevage 10mo agoYeah it was like that in France (at least when I lived there in 2006). Having to buy an oven/stove was not something I expected. (OTOH, perhaps because of this situation, you can get some really cheap appliances.)
- droptablemain 10mo agoI've lived in LA ~12 years in a couple of different apartments. In all my apartment hunting I've never encountered a unit that doesn't come with a refrigerator.
- temp0826 10mo agoI lived there for 9 years, and moved nearly every year (7 times in total) and always had a fridge provided, it never crossed my mind that a place wouldn't have one.
- jiqiren 10mo agoSame. But the fine print was the fridge was left by previous tenant and I was on my own if it broke. Had the option to decline the fridge.
- CSSer 10mo agoMy friend moved into one two months ago that had no fridge. I've seen a handful of similar units. Perhaps it's the price bracket you're looking in? These are often cheap apartments.
- cdrnsf 10mo agoOur last apartment in Hollywood did not include a refrigerator. It was odd, but we bought a small one that we now use in the garage of our home. This meant that the delivery folks had to haul it up through the building's aging elevator, use straps on their forearms to lift it over the newly installed flooring and set it in place. The building was also rent controlled but, instead of placing the notice in a visible, public space, it was affixed as an afterthought in the locked basement laundry area.
- actionfromafar 10mo ago“But the plans were on display…” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” “With a flashlight.” “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” “So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
- stevage 10mo agoIt's interesting to me how norms and expectations about what is provided with a rental apartment vary so widely around the world: - USA: fridge, washing machine plus the below: - Australia: oven/stove, kitchen cabinets, overhead lights, toilet seat, shower curtain, curtains... - France: absolutely fricking nothing. Bare walls. You may have to install cupboards for your kitchen. Instead of overhead lights there will probably be just wires hanging out of the ceiling. If you're moving to the country for a year or so it sucks...
- hypeatei 10mo agoToilet seats are something that people transfer across apartments in France? What the fuck. I'm assuming a lot of tenants furnish the absolute bare minimum and spend their time somewhere else?
- stevage 10mo agoI guess so. We bought one then left it. We bought lamps instead of paying an electrician to install overhead lights then uninstall them.
- driverdan 10mo agoMost US apartments do not have washing machines. Higher end ones do and rental houses may but regular apartments don't.
- hollerith 10mo agoRight, but most US apartment buildings have a room full of washers and dryers for the tenants to use.
- crazygringo 10mo agoThey're becoming much more common -- most new apartment buildings since the mid-2010's stack a washer and dryer vertically in a dedicated closet. Less to do with "higher end" and more to do just with designing for it (e.g. washer water hookup, dryer gas and ventilation hookup, and dedicated closet). In many buildings, the cheaper in-unit machines don't wind up being any more expensive to the landlord than the much more expensive heavy-duty machines in a dedicated area over the long run.
- asdefghyk 10mo agoRE "... do LA apartments not come with refrigerators?!!.” ...." a rental not coming with a fridge is very common in other parts of the world....