(The Center Square) – A “professional tenant” in Los Angeles with four evictions over 12 years who was finally evicted from her apartment after accumulating over $100,000 in unpaid rent and driving the landlord to engage in 9 months of litigation, highlighting the current balance of tenant-owner relations in California.

When one roommate in a three-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica 10 blocks from the beach departed, the remaining tenants took to Craigslist to find a third roommate without having the individual vetted and approved by their landlord. This new tenant paid for the first month’s rent and security deposit, then never paid another penny, driving out the other two tenants with her “very rude” behavior, leaving her as the only occupant as she accumulated over $100,000 in unpaid rent, filling up the entire apartment with her possessions, from high-end groceries to heaps of clothes.

After nine months of litigation initiated after the end of the local COVID-19 era eviction moratorium, the tenant was finally evicted and ordered to pay $25,000 — money that Los Angeles real estate and business lawyer Avi Sinai, who represented the apartment owner in the eviction case, said there will be “zero chance to collect” given she has “no assets, no income, no family, and no career prospects.”

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California laws let ‘professional tenants’ avoid rent, punt costs to owners