Los Angeles ends strange rite of passage with new fridge law
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
The bill is very poorly written and under specified. The only restriction is that the unit itself not be under any manufacturer recall.
as to why... german renter/lessee culture prefers having their own stuff to give it a more homey feel, i guess.
What blew me away was being forced to remove the ceiling lights, and leaving the live wires dangling down. Don't underestimate the difficulty of doing this for someone who has to do it after working hours. You switch off the power of course, which leaves you in total darkness. Naturally I had not thought of that little complication beforehand.
It hugely sucks because things like fridges and stoves often need to fit the dedicated space in a kitchen exactly. The chances that your previous apartment and new apartment fit the same size appliances is virtually nil.
This is why it makes sense for them to just be part of the apartment.
I don't know what you mean by "mistreatment" -- anything in an apartment can be mistreated I suppose, it's not specific to appliances. If you damage anything, that comes out of your deposit. But I'm not really sure what there is specifically to damage about fridges and stoves? They get dirty and you can clean them. They don't generally require any super-special treatment.
But the point is: yeah, "immovable".
The landlord is fully aware that when the tenant eventually moves out, the landlord can require the tenant to take the kitchen with them — after all, it is the tenant’s property, not the landlord’s. The landlord can therefore demand that the outgoing tenant removes the kitchen. This again puts the tenant under pressure, because fully fitted kitchens very rarely fit into a new apartment.
At that point, the landlord can make an offer to buy the kitchen back from the departing tenant so that it can remain in place — but the purchase price is then only a fraction of what the tenant originally had to pay the landlord when moving in. In this way, the landlord can indirectly force one tenant after another to buy the kitchen and later sell it back.
In short, I don't like shopping for fridges, and I'm glad fewer Angelinos will have to.
- USA: fridge, washing machine plus the below:
- Australia: oven/stove, kitchen cabinets, overhead lights, toilet seat, shower curtain, curtains...
- France: absolutely fricking nothing. Bare walls. You may have to install cupboards for your kitchen. Instead of overhead lights there will probably be just wires hanging out of the ceiling. If you're moving to the country for a year or so it sucks...
We bought lamps instead of paying an electrician to install overhead lights then uninstall them.
In many buildings, the cheaper in-unit machines don't wind up being any more expensive to the landlord than the much more expensive heavy-duty machines in a dedicated area over the long run.
I lived for ten years in a German housing cooperative, which is a member-owned, non-profit organization that provides rental housing within a market economy alongside private landlords. Tenants are also members, which offers long-term security and participation in governance, without the housing being state-owned or socialist in nature. When I eventually moved out, I was required by my contract to remove all wallpaper from the apartment—even though I had lived there alone, the walls were plain white, and everything was in very good condition. Scraping wallpaper off every room turned into a surprisingly tedious and nerve-racking process.
(Not sure if it's still a common thing, last decade it was, but I lived in places where the kitchen stayed with the apartment).
(OTOH, perhaps because of this situation, you can get some really cheap appliances.)
Granted, it quickly solves some of the problem, but to act as if it is a sustainable solution is maddening.
Is there any reason you want to isolate it to one thing? Does that benefit the discussion in any way? Were you trying to project that you don't believe anything such as a modern monopoly can be said to exist?
Monopoly comes in many forms, and only the most limited version of the argument puts it at "100% market control," whereas, if you read the many good laws that were passed in the wake of consumer and market harms, you'll see there are four specific elements, any of which, are not only a criminal act but are widely considered "monopolistic behavior."
I was never sure why the ownership class preferred one large investment over many smaller or even medium sized ones. Apparently diversification is only good for /my/ portfolio.
The reality is, the current government security state prefers this arrangement, as it vastly simplifies their strategies for mass data collection and abuse. There used to be 30 cellular companies. There were so many they felt entitled to tell the government off when they overreached. Widely seen as a problem by law enforcement the message was received and enforcement of anti trust laws in certain sectors ceased.
Stoves .. anywhere which has done up the kitchen this century will have integrated oven plus stovetop of some sort.
The building was also rent controlled but, instead of placing the notice in a visible, public space, it was affixed as an afterthought in the locked basement laundry area.
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
Might be nice to have a new one with no one else's mess, but they do clean up pretty fully when you take out all the shelves.
The big problem is that fridges are not a standard size, and hence the spaces in kitchens are not a standard size. So there's a good chance when you move it won't fit (ours only worked because it's so small - which also made moving it not too onerous). It's a much better result for everyone if the apartment/house has a fridge that perfectly fits the space.
Also:
>Why would you want to use somebody else’s fridge?
This is a weird question. You're ok with using "someone else's" apartment, someone else's toilet even. But you draw the line at a fridge?
Citation needed on the longevity of new/fancy refrigerators past warranty. Heard too many horror stories. Even our basic LG had a recall on the compressor that we thankfully weren't affected by (yet) and has an issue with the gaskets not sealing very well all the time.
Alas, it's one of the few models that will fit into our tight space and still give us enough space (it has the handles built into the door, rather than sticking out another ~2 inches).