City attorney: “Greed overpowered basic human decency” at Bayview property

Print Friendly

San Francisco intends to lower the boom on a landlord who allegedly turned a single-family home into an illegal multifamily slum.

City Attorney David Chiu was poised to file a lawsuit against Rafael Garcia Sanchez for illegally converting a three-bedroom home into five apartments with “deplorable” living conditions at 1465 Oakdale Avenue, in the Bayview District, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

The complaint alleges Sanchez raked in $9,300 a month in rent by packing 15 people into the single-story house.

The city’s lawsuit alleges the homeowner “created a public nuisance and profited from collecting rent from tenants living in illegal and unsafe units.” The city claims Sanchez violated state housing law, multiple municipal codes and California’s Unfair Competition Law. 

The city is seeking unspecified penalties, fees and injunctive relief to cure the violations at the property.

In the past 10 years, the house has been the subject of 19 Department of Building Inspection complaints, 13 of which are still open, according to the Chronicle.

City inspectors have found unapproved and hazardous electrical wiring, a lack of required smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, pest infestations and droppings, mold and mildew in the bedrooms and bathrooms, emergency exits obstructed, improperly installed appliances, lack of required light and ventilation, unpermitted kitchens and bathrooms and general dilapidation, according to city attorney and public records reviewed by the newspaper.

Tenants, who include 12 adults and three children, pay between $800 and $2,000 a month to lease the unauthorized rooms, according to Chiu.

“In this situation, greed overpowered basic human decency at the expense of tenants,” Chiu told the Chronicle. “Landlords are responsible for providing a safe and healthy place for tenants to live.

“But this property owner created conditions that are illegal, hazardous and categorically deplorable.”

Sanchez could not be reached to comment, and one resident entering the home declined to comment. 

In May last year, the Department of Building Inspection received a complaint of black mold in a bedroom, a rotten floor and an infestation of spiders and cockroaches at the Sanchez property. 

That led to a series of inspections ending in a July joint task force inspection of the property, issuing 12 notices of violation. The Department of Building Inspection declared the property a “public nuisance” after two hearings on the notices of violation.

Sanchez bought the property in 2015 for $599,000, at which time there were already pending violations for unlawful dwelling units and health code violations. 

Source: TheRealDeal