Can my SF landlord evict a tenant under these circumstances?
January 18, 2015 9:25 PM Subscribe
My roommate got very drunk, put some chicken in a covered pot on the stove to reheat, and fell asleep. I woke up to an acrid-smelling room (my room is on the other side of the house from the kitchen) and the hallway smoke detector going off. She could have easily started a serious fire (she didn't wake up when the alarm went off, and when I woke her up, she initially didn't even remember that she'd put something on the stove). Even though she didn't burn the kitchen down, the house smells TERRIBLE. Like possibly uninhabitably terrible. Can my landlord evict her for this? Can he make her pay for any necessary smoke removal services? What are MY rights here? Mostly I want her gone, but if that's not possible...? We are in a rent-controlled apartment in SF, and each of the roomates is on a separate lease (not month to month).
Ah, eviction? Likely not. You can call the state renter's helpline on Tuesday to clarify (sorry no clicky - I'm on my phone. Google has the number. It's part of the CA.gov website.)
Now.
The problem you are describing is the residuals from a fire that burned protein. I did something like this once. (Thanksgiving, trying to make stock with the carcass... Thought the flame was off, it was not!!)
A friend's mom once left two sausages in a frying pan that cindered like that. They had to redux their whole kitchen (I think his mom just wanted to renovate;)) As a joke, he made me a mix tape to commemorate my incident he titled "Burning Down the House." After the title track. I wiped down the walls, lighting, and put EVERYTHING in the kitchen possible through the dishwasher. Problem solved.
If items are irreparably damaged, and they are yours - renter's insurance or small claims court.
ProTip: Next time, do NOT remove the lid from the pot indoors. That was your mistake. By doing that (and dousing with water) you further diffused the smoke and residue.
I know you are terrified, upset, and hate your roommate with a passion right now. I'm sorry.
I think how you address your roommate's continued tenancy and behavior is a different AskMe. Don't make her a mix tape, tho. This was not a joke. I'm glad you're OK.
posted by jbenben at 9:56 PM on January 18, 2015 [3 favorites]
Now.
The problem you are describing is the residuals from a fire that burned protein. I did something like this once. (Thanksgiving, trying to make stock with the carcass... Thought the flame was off, it was not!!)
A friend's mom once left two sausages in a frying pan that cindered like that. They had to redux their whole kitchen (I think his mom just wanted to renovate;)) As a joke, he made me a mix tape to commemorate my incident he titled "Burning Down the House." After the title track. I wiped down the walls, lighting, and put EVERYTHING in the kitchen possible through the dishwasher. Problem solved.
If items are irreparably damaged, and they are yours - renter's insurance or small claims court.
ProTip: Next time, do NOT remove the lid from the pot indoors. That was your mistake. By doing that (and dousing with water) you further diffused the smoke and residue.
I know you are terrified, upset, and hate your roommate with a passion right now. I'm sorry.
I think how you address your roommate's continued tenancy and behavior is a different AskMe. Don't make her a mix tape, tho. This was not a joke. I'm glad you're OK.
posted by jbenben at 9:56 PM on January 18, 2015 [3 favorites]
As people have said check with the Tenants Union. Do you know if your roommate has renters insurance? It may cover the smoke removal services.
posted by oneear at 9:59 PM on January 18, 2015
posted by oneear at 9:59 PM on January 18, 2015
i can't help you on the landlord issues, but i can tell you how to get smells like that out.
first, make some really strong coffee and let it burn all the way down in the pot. Hell, buy a cheap coffee maker from goodwill for $3 just to do this with. Do that, and throw it out. Let it burn down to nothing all day at the epicenter of the stink. While you're cleaning, as i describe below, just keep putting another pot on and continuing to do this. You don't want a ton of ventilation either, just crack the windows a bit so the cleaner funk doesn't get to you.
This will knock out 99% of smells, especially non cigarette smoke smells. They literally do this during person-died-in-their-house remediation sometimes. It's a gigantic smell, but a non offensive one. It will completely cancel out and overpower, not just mix with, a lot of bad smells.
These types of smells DO go away on their own, but coffee is a good bridge to that. I've had several much worse events, including fires(one caused by a roommate! doing the same stupid fucking thing!) in my apartments, and it always went away.
If you need to get it off of clothes or something immediately, call a local tool rental shop and rent an ozone generator. Lock it in the closet with the clothes for a few hours. Only do this if the dry cleaning total would add up to more than the rental cost. Ozone will get out anything up to and including rotting corpse smell.
Seeing as how no material actually burned in a flamey way, and no serious smoke/soot was created, the smell will likely only last a couple weeks at most. Anything it was cooked in/on needs to either be deep cleaned or trashed though. This type of smell for instance, never comes out of a microwave. You should take the entire top of the stove apart. Throw away the trays under the burners and get new ones, deep clean under there with bleach, clean the crap out of the top. That pot, and anything else that was on top of the stove is probably garbage if you want the smell to be gone.
Clean the floors, walls, and ceiling with shitloads of lysol. Window frames, doorframes, everything in that room and anything directly connected to it.
If it's not totally obvious, dumbass roommate needs to get off their ass and assist you in this. You can probably kill 90% of the smell this way, and the rest will go away on its own.
Be very very thankful the walls didn't burn or anything. That smell is impossible to get rid of without killz, new paint, and lots of other things replaced.
Also i'm going to give the stupid advice here but, if you can't kick that roommate out(and i don't know, but i bet it wouldn't be super easy), how hard it would be for YOU to move? I know it's not fair, but that was the right thing to do on my situation i should have done way sooner. Do you want to be right, and do what's fair? or do you want all your shit to not be burned up. Or you know, yourself.
posted by emptythought at 12:00 AM on January 19, 2015 [17 favorites]
first, make some really strong coffee and let it burn all the way down in the pot. Hell, buy a cheap coffee maker from goodwill for $3 just to do this with. Do that, and throw it out. Let it burn down to nothing all day at the epicenter of the stink. While you're cleaning, as i describe below, just keep putting another pot on and continuing to do this. You don't want a ton of ventilation either, just crack the windows a bit so the cleaner funk doesn't get to you.
This will knock out 99% of smells, especially non cigarette smoke smells. They literally do this during person-died-in-their-house remediation sometimes. It's a gigantic smell, but a non offensive one. It will completely cancel out and overpower, not just mix with, a lot of bad smells.
These types of smells DO go away on their own, but coffee is a good bridge to that. I've had several much worse events, including fires(one caused by a roommate! doing the same stupid fucking thing!) in my apartments, and it always went away.
If you need to get it off of clothes or something immediately, call a local tool rental shop and rent an ozone generator. Lock it in the closet with the clothes for a few hours. Only do this if the dry cleaning total would add up to more than the rental cost. Ozone will get out anything up to and including rotting corpse smell.
Seeing as how no material actually burned in a flamey way, and no serious smoke/soot was created, the smell will likely only last a couple weeks at most. Anything it was cooked in/on needs to either be deep cleaned or trashed though. This type of smell for instance, never comes out of a microwave. You should take the entire top of the stove apart. Throw away the trays under the burners and get new ones, deep clean under there with bleach, clean the crap out of the top. That pot, and anything else that was on top of the stove is probably garbage if you want the smell to be gone.
Clean the floors, walls, and ceiling with shitloads of lysol. Window frames, doorframes, everything in that room and anything directly connected to it.
If it's not totally obvious, dumbass roommate needs to get off their ass and assist you in this. You can probably kill 90% of the smell this way, and the rest will go away on its own.
Be very very thankful the walls didn't burn or anything. That smell is impossible to get rid of without killz, new paint, and lots of other things replaced.
Also i'm going to give the stupid advice here but, if you can't kick that roommate out(and i don't know, but i bet it wouldn't be super easy), how hard it would be for YOU to move? I know it's not fair, but that was the right thing to do on my situation i should have done way sooner. Do you want to be right, and do what's fair? or do you want all your shit to not be burned up. Or you know, yourself.
posted by emptythought at 12:00 AM on January 19, 2015 [17 favorites]
From everything I've learned about CA leasing laws, it would at the very least take months for a landlord to try to get her out and if she at all fought back she'd probably win.
You didn't ask about cleaning but everyone keeps mentioning it. I once met someone who worked in remediation who said their primary cleaning agent for hard/painted surfaces was cheap dishwasher detergent (liquid thinned a little with water or powder mixed to sludge with water, then several clean water passes to get the cleaner off).
Grand scheme of things, you kind of have to decide what to do with yourself since that's the only person you can actually rely on. I imagine you don't want to move if you have a good rent-controlled place.
If you're ready to make your feelings obvious to her, tell her you want her to leave and ask what it'll take. Offer her money to leave, if you have some to offer, and go to the landlord and explain the deal and ask them to waive lease-break fees to help you get her out. What the landlord can do legally to make her go is very different from what he can choose to do to help her leave.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:50 AM on January 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
You didn't ask about cleaning but everyone keeps mentioning it. I once met someone who worked in remediation who said their primary cleaning agent for hard/painted surfaces was cheap dishwasher detergent (liquid thinned a little with water or powder mixed to sludge with water, then several clean water passes to get the cleaner off).
Grand scheme of things, you kind of have to decide what to do with yourself since that's the only person you can actually rely on. I imagine you don't want to move if you have a good rent-controlled place.
If you're ready to make your feelings obvious to her, tell her you want her to leave and ask what it'll take. Offer her money to leave, if you have some to offer, and go to the landlord and explain the deal and ask them to waive lease-break fees to help you get her out. What the landlord can do legally to make her go is very different from what he can choose to do to help her leave.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:50 AM on January 19, 2015 [1 favorite]
Good cleaning advice. But at the very least, Drunk Roommate should COMPLETELY be shouldering the stink eradication/cleaning.
posted by 2soxy4mypuppet at 5:18 PM on January 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by 2soxy4mypuppet at 5:18 PM on January 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by zachlipton at 9:53 PM on January 18, 2015 [1 favorite]