Landlord Harassment in Los Angeles After a Repair Complaint

Landlord Harassment in Los Angeles After a Repair Complaint

Filing a repair complaint or reporting unsafe housing conditions takes courage. Unfortunately, some Los Angeles landlords respond to complaints not with repairs — but with harassment. Repeated uninvited entries, threats, shutoff of utilities, refusal to accept rent, intimidation, and other hostile acts can make tenants feel afraid to speak up or stay in their own homes. But landlord harassment is illegal in Los Angeles, and tenants have rights.

What Is Landlord Harassment?

In Los Angeles, the Tenant Anti-Harassment Ordinance (TAHO) prohibits landlords from engaging in a broad range of harassing behaviors. Harassment is defined as a knowing and willful course of conduct directed at a specific tenant that seriously alarms or disturbs the tenant and serves no legitimate purpose.

Prohibited conduct includes:

• Interrupting, terminating, or failing to provide essential services such as heat, water, electricity, or gas
• Making or threatening to make repeated unannounced entries
• Threatening the tenant with physical harm
• Removing the tenant’s personal property from the unit
• Refusing to accept or acknowledge receipt of lawful rent payments
• Threatening to report the tenant to immigration authorities
• Interfering with the tenant’s right to quiet enjoyment
• Misrepresenting facts to intimidate the tenant into vacating

When Harassment Follows a Repair Complaint

The most dangerous form of landlord harassment is when it is triggered by a tenant exercising a legal right — like complaining about mold, reporting no heat, filing an LAHD complaint, or contacting a code enforcement agency about unsafe and unhealthy housing conditions.

California Civil Code Section 1942.5 protects tenants from retaliation for exercising these rights. A landlord who becomes hostile, begins making excessive entries, cuts services, threatens eviction, or otherwise escalates pressure after a repair complaint may be engaging in both harassment and illegal retaliation simultaneously.

Utility Shutoffs as Harassment

Deliberately cutting off water, heat, electricity, or gas to force a tenant out is a form of illegal self-help eviction. It can also create extremely dangerous conditions — especially in buildings with defective gas appliances, toxic HVAC systems, or other existing hazards. California law prohibits landlords from shutting off utilities except under very limited circumstances, none of which include tenant complaints.

Excessive Entry as Harassment

California law generally requires landlords to provide 24 hours’ advance written notice before entering a rental unit, except in genuine emergencies. Repeated unannounced entries, or entries that seem designed to intimidate rather than address a real maintenance issue, can constitute harassment. Document every entry with dates, times, reasons given, and whether notice was provided.

How Harassment Connects to Unsafe Housing

Harassment often coexists with serious habitability failures. A landlord who has ignored repair requests for months and is now trying to push you out may simultaneously be subjecting your unit to dangerous conditions, refusing to fix pest infestations, leaving lead paint hazards unaddressed, and harassing you to leave. These overlapping claims can significantly strengthen your legal case.

Documenting Harassment

To build a strong harassment case, document every incident carefully:

• Note the date, time, and nature of each harassing act
• Save voicemails, text messages, emails, and written notices
• Install a doorbell camera or other recording device if possible (within legal limits)
• File a complaint with LAHD’s Tenant Anti-Harassment unit
• Notify other tenants who may have witnessed incidents
• Contact police if threats involve physical safety

Legal Remedies for Harassed Tenants

Tenants who are harassed by their landlords may be entitled to actual damages, civil penalties up to $10,000 per violation under the TAHO, punitive damages in egregious cases, attorney’s fees, and injunctive relief to stop the harassing conduct. If harassment accompanies a wrongful eviction, additional remedies may apply.

Call a Los Angeles Landlord Harassment Attorney

If your landlord is harassing you — especially after you complained about repairs or unsafe conditions — you do not have to endure it alone. Shakhnis Law represents Los Angeles tenants in landlord harassment and unsafe housing cases. Our team understands how these situations overlap and how to build a strong case for maximum recovery.

See our verdicts and settlements for results in tenant rights cases, and contact us today to discuss your situation with an experienced Los Angeles tenant lawyer.