‘Adult life is just trying to avoid being scammed’: LA renter discovers she’s overpaying by 50% on officially ‘uninhabitable’ apartment

Why are honest landlords like aliens? Because we’ve never found categorical proof that they exist, but we live in hope. In the latest installment of Landlords From Hell, a TikToker has revealed all about how she’s been paying 50% too much for her apartment… an apartment that’s officially “uninhabitable!”

The saga began back in January when TikTok user conornoburst received two very different letters in the mail. One was from her landlord informing her of a rent increase, because of course. The other, however, came from the LA Housing Department to let her know that she can pay her rent to them directly instead of her landlord. The reason? Because the apartment has been declared “uninhabitable,” as per REAP.

As conornoburst explains, REAP (Rent Escrow Account Program) allows LA renters to pay a reduced rent to the Housing Department if their rented property is declared to be guilty of poor living standards — the landlord is then only allowed access to this money if they are using it to improve the property. The problem? The TikToker’s landlord had previously assured her that the REAP inspection went well and she should ignore any letters about it in future.

A quick (well, OK, excruciatingly long) call to the Housing Department revealed that, actually, the property was in such bad shape that she had been granted a rent reduction of 45%… since last August. That means that the renter had been cheated out of thousands of dollars by her landlord!

Conornoburst obviously confronted her landlord about the, let’s be kind and say, discrepancy, to which the swindling property owner “played dumb” and told her that she needed to provide a document to prove what the Housing Department had told her. The tenacious TikToker did just that, and this document ended up proving that the situation was even worse than she thought. The rent reduction wasn’t 45% but a nice round 50%, meaning the landlord owed them even more.

Typically, these TikTok crusades against injustice end on frustrating notes, but in this case… guys, we got a happy ending! Confronted with the irrefutable evidence of their “mistake,” the landlord repaid the full amount owed to conornoburst, which totaled circa $4,300 all together. Thanks to the TikToker encouraging her neighbors to do the same, it seems everyone in the property has got what was owed to them… including the landlord.

In short, thank the renting gods for REAP. According to Tenants of California, REAP — supported by LAMC Section 162.00 and RAC Regulations Section 1200.00 of the Los Angeles housing regulations — “is a system that helps fix problems in Los Angeles rental homes. It ensures homes are safe and comfortable, and helps keep housing affordable.” Clearly, when it works, it really works. As in the case of conornoburst’s shocking rent scam, you might say it forces landlords to reap what they sow.