Apartment Building

Tenants and a state senator are battling a requirement by a Los Angeles landlord that residents pay their rent online, alleging that a "green" initiative introduced by the company is actually a pretense to evict low-income, elderly renters benefiting from rent-stabilization provisions. Elderly renters living in the Woodlake Manor Apartment building in South Los Angeles have sued their landlord, Jones & Jones Management Group Inc., alleging that their digital shortcomings could leave them vulnerable to eviction under the Woodland Hills company's new requirement that they make all their payments online.

The Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to provide up to $322,000 in relocation money to dozens of low-income tenants who must move from a South Los Angeles apartment building deemed unsafe by city inspectors. Tenants were given eviction notices last month after housing officials concluded that owner John Callaghan had illegally converted what was supposed to have been a three-unit apartment building on 49th Street into as many as 44 separate living spaces — a warren of narrow hallways; tiny, shared bathrooms; and communal kitchens, much of it laced with unpermitted electrical and plumbing work.

An arson suspect was arrested in Hollywood after allegedly setting three fires that caused significant property damage early Thursday morning. Authorities say Samuel Arrington, 22, of Sunland torched a vehicle and set trash ablaze along a five-block stretch of Sunset Boulevard. It is estimated the fires caused more than $100,000 in damage, said Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Jaime Moore. The first blaze, in a dumpster at Poinsettia Place and Sunset Boulevard, broke out at 1:12 a.m. Around the same time, firefighters received a call about a car ablaze in the carport of an apartment building at 1434 N. Fuller Ave. Firefighters rescued the 20 occupants of the 10-unit complex.

On Christmas Eve, family members came to visit 91-year-old Dorie F. Pozas at the apartment building where she lived in Pacoima. They left that evening and Pozas, whose husband died several years earlier, woke up alone Christmas morning. She lit a candle, perhaps to light a star-shaped lantern made of rice paper that Filipino families traditionally use to celebrate Christmas — the light represents the Star of Bethlehem. About 9 a.m. Sunday, a visitor saw smoke coming from under Pozas' door.

In the concrete courtyard that had hosted family barbecues and children's birthday parties with piñatas and cake, the mother of Juan Jose Barajas laid out red roses in front of a shrine to her son. As they have every evening since Saturday, friends and neighbors gathered to say the rosary and light candles for Barajas, a 41-year-old father of four who was gunned down in a drive-by shooting, an apparently innocent bystander. Monday was the third night of vigil and the crowd had swelled to about 100 in anticipation of a full Catholic Mass on the patio behind Barajas' apartment building on Witmer Street in L.A.'s Westlake district.

Three years ago, landlord John Callaghan was granted city permits to enlarge a South Los Angeles single family home, creating three apartments. But he didn't stop there. He crammed as many as 44 rental rooms into a warren of narrow hallways, tiny, shared bathrooms and communal kitchens. Now, as the holidays approach, dozens of renters who paid as much as $500 per unit are being ordered to vacate the burnt orange three-story complex, in a neighborhood about a mile from the Coliseum.

Jose Pimentel appears to have spent much of his time hanging out on the stoop of an upper Manhattan apartment building, smoking cigarettes and being such a layabout that one old schoolmate assumed he was a drug addict or homeless. Police arrested the 27-year-old convert to Islam on Saturday and accused him of plotting to blow up U.S. targets — including American troops returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and launch a one-man holy war in New York City. On Monday, Pimentel's mother, Carmen Sosa, seemed stunned by her son's arrest and unable to understand how he could have turned into a radical Muslim.

Question: I live alone in an upper-level apartment. I was recently diagnosed with cancer and began chemotherapy treatments. The side effects of the treatment include dizziness and exhaustion. My physician has suggested that I try to minimize my exposure to situations that may result in injury from the side effects. He also suggested that I move to a ground-floor unit to make things easier. One the same size as mine is available, so I asked my manager if I could transfer. The manager told me she would not allow me to transfer since my lease has three more months to go. I thought because of my disability status and condition, I could request this type of transfer.

Glen Lim and his mother were anxious to find someone who could explain how their apartment building in Mid-Wilshire had gotten into so much trouble with Los Angeles housing inspectors — and what they could do to fix the problem. Eun Chavis seemed like the perfect answer. She was smart, a veteran city employee and a Korean American who spoke the only language Lim's mother, the manager of his building, understood. But instead of bringing the building into compliance, Chavis used her position at the Los Angeles Housing Department's Koreatown office to collect $16,000 in payoffs from Lim and his family, according to criminal court records, police reports and interviews.

Robert Geminder has told the story so many times, it almost sounds like he's reading a script when he shares his memories with me. I was born in Wroclaw, Poland, in 1935. My father was very wealthy and owned many apartment buildings. Our family of four lived very well and had a very good life. And then, in 1939, the Gestapo came. What happened after that, no amount of rehearsing can soft-pedal or tame. His Holocaust story is not a tale of death chambers and concentration camps.