The issue is bugs.
When I went to move in, that's when I saw dead cockroaches.
There's no sign of anything inside the apartment unit.
Do you have a picture of any bug?
There's bugs in the refrigerator, on the stove.
- Pictures. - Unfortunately not.
If I'm in any place and there are roaches in the refrigerator
and fleas behind the oven, I'm gonna take a picture.
[announcer] Now, on Tribunal Justice.
["Ride of the Valkyries plays]
[announcer] Today's case was filed in Fontana, California.
[Byrd] Judge, this is case number 2004 on the calendar,
in the matter of Najjar versus Perez.
Parties have been sworn in.
- [Judge DiMango] Thank you, Byrd. - [Byrd] You're welcome, Judge.
Ms. Najjar,
you rented a studio apartment from the defendant.
And, Mr. Perez, I understand that you are the owner/landlord
of the unit that the plaintiff rented.
However, the transactions and conversations
that transpired between the plaintiff,
they were with your authorized agent, correct?
Yes. She's a real estate agent. I'm the broker.
[Judge DiMango] So now you, ma'am, are saying
you were supposed to move in in April.
- You paid the first month's rent. - Uh-hmm.
[Judge DiMango] And you also gave a security deposit.
- The total of that is $3,500. - That's correct.
[Judge DiMango] You contend that due to the ongoing infestation of fleas
and roaches, you and your dog, Lola, could never fully move into the unit.
That you notified his agent, they breached the warranty
of habitability by being unable to remedy this problem.
And since it was uninhabitable, you have been constructively
evicted and therefore you are entitled to the return of the full
April rent that you paid as well as your security deposit.
Sir, you say that you and your agent did everything you possibly could.
You feel she was unreasonable.
These are false contentions of bugs in the apartment.
There really weren't any according to you.
And that the reason that she was doing this
was because she really just changed her mind
and didn't wanna live there anymore.
In fact, you offered to settle this with her and she refused your offer,
so you're both here today.
- That's correct. - Where are you living now?
I'm still with my mom.
- [Judge DiMango] Okay. - Yeah.
And you came from your mom's home to move into this unit,
- in the defendant's... - [Amal] Yeah. That's correct.
- ... multi-unit property? - [Amal] Yeah.
I want to look at the unit, and that's when I met the broker.
She showed me around the place.
Okay. So on April 4th, you walk into the apartment.
- You look at it. You stay... - [Amal] Yes.
Having already paid rent in my--with my mom.
You paid your mother $400, which was to cover the month of April.
- Yes. - [Judge DiMango] April 4th,
you go into the apartment.
You look at it. And what happens?
I mentioned that my mom has a very intense phobia of cockroaches,
so that bugs were going to be an issue.
[Judge DiMango] Okay. So you make a point.
- Bugs were an issue. - I made a point. And she said that...
- [Judge DiMango] Did you see a bug? - ... it was fumigated. No.
[Judge DiMango] But you said, "On my first visit to the apartment,
I saw a few dead baby cockroaches."
So that was after I signed the lease.
So we signed the lease on the 4th.
And then when I went to move in,
that's when I saw dead cockroaches, April 6th.
[Judge DiMango] Okay. So April 6th,
you ask about them and they tell you
that the apartment was fumigated...
- Yes. - [Judge DiMango] ... correct?
Do you fumigate these apartments regularly, sir?
I just acquired the property two months prior,
so I haven't done it regularly.
We had it fumigated per her request.
Okay. I saw a can of something somewhere and--
up on the screen.
Is that what you used to fumigate?
[Peter] I did not use it. That's what the fumigator used.
And that communication was between my property manager
and the fumigator that she's been using for over ten years.
What happens after he fumigates?
So after the building was supposedly fumigated,
I returned and there was still an issue.
[Judge DiMango] 'Cause I have that here.
On April 9th, you say you haven't slept there still
- and there were bugs there. - [Amal] Uh-hmm.
And this is a message that you sent to his agent?
- Yes. - [Judge DiMango] But you're still not
living in the apartment. You're still living with your mother.
- That's correct. - Go on.
[Amal] On the 9th, that's when I did--I did move in
some of my belongings from my storage over.
- So... - Didn't you go to Coachella that weekend?
Yeah. I was working at Coachella that weekend.
So you were not available to move into the apartment that weekend,
- but your things were there, correct? - [Amal] Yeah. That's correct.
[Judge DiMango] So now, April 9th,
you tell the real estate agent that there are bugs
and she says, "Okay, we will have the place fumigated again."
- Yeah. - [Judge DiMango] So now you come back
from Coachella and you tell them
there are still bugs in the apartment.
- Is that correct? - Yes.
Do you have a picture of any bug?
I do have a video.
[Judge DiMango] Video of the apartment?
What are we looking at?
[Amal] So you're looking at my pant leg...
- [Judge DiMango] Yes. - [Amal] ... from--
so I was in the house and I actually went to use the restroom.
And as I'm sitting there, I looked down and I see these fleas on me.
- Wait. That's in the house? - No.
This is when I ran out of the house, pulled my truck bed down,
and I'm sitting there, knocking these fleas off of me.
Did you ever take any picture of any flea,
living or dead, in the apartment?
Unfortunately not.
Why not?
If I came into a place that had dead cockroaches or fleas,
I would be taking pictures of that.
You know the nature of a flea, right?
You try to get it off of you and it hops.
- I wear--I wear a lot of oils, so... - [Judge DiMango] I noticed you carried
your fleas from the bathroom to the yard.
- [Amal] Yeah. - I've had pets my whole life.
- That's not a flea. - That's why we're here.
- [Judge DiMango] Okay. Let me... - Sorry.
[Judge DiMango] ... talk to you a little bit.
There's a stairway I wanted to show you.
The plaintiff consider that perhaps the stairway
- was the cause of the bugs. - [Peter] Yeah.
I had to rip the carpet out.
[Judge DiMango] Right. But you didn't just rip it up
because you were ripping it up.
You ripped it up because there was some evidence of bugs there
as your real estate agent admits.
No. I had it ripped out because I said if it's--
if she thinks there's gonna be any bugs anywhere
and there's no sign of anything inside the apartment unit,
then rip the carpet out as well because if there's gonna be anything...
[Judge DiMango] Except that there's a text message...
... it's gonna go away as well.
[Judge DiMango] Except there's a text message between
your agent and the plaintiff where you were blaming her dog
for bringing the fleas in in the first instance.
[Peter] Well, if there's no flea--I mean, the apartment was empty for two months.
There's nothing in the apartment that the fleas could have lived on.
But she does have reports from a vet that the dog
has had its flea medication and that the dog has been groomed.
My real concern here is more about what you said, whether or not
this was just a ploy by her, because she never did move in.
She moved all her property in but, for some reason, didn't move herself in.
- In fact... - She also didn't move her stuff out
right away. She wasn't quick to move out.
[Judge DiMango] That's correct as well.
Did you leave all your things in the apartment?
I did leave my things in the apartment.
They were all moved out by May 6.
Where did you go on May 6th?
All my stuff went back to my storage unit because none of my personal,
like everyday belongings were ever moved into the space.
[announcer] Coming up on Tribunal Justice.
- You trust your property manager. - Yes.
- She has no reason to lie. - [Judge Levy] Right.
Your property manager never told you about a bug,
but we now know that your property manager lied to you.
[dramatic musical sting]
[theme music plays]
[announcer] Amal Najjar is suing her former landlord,
Peter Perez, for $3,500 in rent and security deposit.
She claims bugs kept her from moving in,
but Peter says Amal made up the infestation
to break a lease she couldn't afford.
Now, you have all these boxes in a place where you say is infested.
You say, "Okay. Fine. You want out."
He was willing to return the $2,000 security deposit
to you but not rent for April.
And terminate her lease.
- [Judge DiMango] And terminate the lease. - She signed the one-year lease.
I was willing to let her out of it, mutually.
[Judge DiMango] ... important factor here, because without cause
for you to breach this lease,
you'd be responsible on it until he rented it or you rented it.
- I rented it two months later. - [Judge DiMango] Within two months.
- Is that tenant still living there? - [Peter] He is.
I have other tenants who live across the hall too that didn't complain.
How long were your boxes in a storage facility?
At that point, probably close to two years...
- [Judge DiMango] Okay. - ... because I just closed my business
in Northern California with COVID, so...
[Judge DiMango] What did you do?
I had an herbal apothecary.
So you had herbs and all sorts of things like that?
- [Amal] Crystals and candles. - [Judge DiMango] What did you do
- with all that stuff? - That's what's inside of my storage unit.
[Judge DiMango] So you take your boxes from the storage facility
that's been sitting there for two years,
with herbs and other things in it,
and you move it into a place
that when you first go in and sign the lease,
by your testimony in here, had no bugs.
You left it in there, and, at that point,
when you went back a couple of days later,
it was then that you saw some dead roaches.
- That's not... - [Judge DiMango] That was your testimony.
There's bugs in the refrigerator, on the stove.
- There's a live cockroaches behind... - [Judge DiMango] Pictures.
- There's... - Pictures.
I don't have--I just have the testimony
- of text messages that, you know... - That you sent.
- As it was happening, yes. - [Judge DiMango] So then...
I didn't know that I was preparing for a whole lawsuit, like...
[chuckles]
[Judge DiMango] And what do you do? You leave your things in there
till May 7th, as best I could tell from the papers.
He offers to return to you your security deposit which you refuse.
He doesn't wanna give you April
because he believes you've been living in there.
You have your property in there through the whole month of April.
And he lets you out of your lease without asking for anything,
even though still it remained unrented for two months.
And your position is, "Now, I don't wanna give you anything."
Is that your position now?
My position is I don't feel like I should give up the security deposit.
I didn't countersue.
And because she took me here, yeah, I don't wanna return that.
Can you tell me that you never saw any bugs in that apartment?
Yes, I can.
- [Judge DiMango] Thank you very much. - You're welcome.
- [Judge DiMango] Judge Levy. - [Judge Levy] 'Cause you would agree that
if there were bugs in--and what have you,
that it would be considered uninhabitable,
at least, the argument could be made, and you would have to return everything.
I wouldn't even argue.
[Judge Levy] Right. Because you trust your property manager.
Yes. She's been with me a couple years.
[Judge Levy] She doesn't lie.
- She has no reason to lie. - [Judge Levy] Right.
And if there were bugs, she would have said there were bugs.
This is you, Ms. Najjar.
"I'll be back tonight, but I will not return to this house
until this issue is resolved." And the issue is bugs.
- Yes. - [Judge Levy] Okay.
"It's too much risk for my dog and my mom has cats.
I thought it would be done already considering you had since Thursday.
I understood that they would pull the carpet and bomb."
This is your broker, sir.
This is your employee.
April 17th now.
She says, "Good. Everything done."
"What did they discover?"
And there's a picture of the stairs.
Who sent you those pictures of the stairs?
- [Amal] The broker. - [Judge Levy] She wrote,
"Yup, that was the problem", with a throw-up emoji.
You very smartly say, "So what did they find?"
Her response, "Bugs."
Your employee.
And if I heard you correct, you said that your property manager
had been using the same fumigation company for ten years.
- Yes. - [Judge Levy] Why didn't you bring
any of those records?
Well, I didn't know I needed to defend a ten-year history
of her fumigation, but she managed the property prior to me owning it.
You made it clear you've never seen a bug there.
Your property manager never told you about a bug.
But we now know that your property manager lied to you,
because the property manager, in a text,
told her that there were bugs and it was in that carpeting.
So isn't the best evidence of your denial of there being bugs
were those records, and you didn't bring them?
- I don't have them. - [Judge Levy] Right. You don't have them.
I have nothing further.
- [Peter] Uh, if I may... - [Judge Acker] No.
- You don't need to. - Okay.
You haven't made your case as far as I'm concerned.
- You have a lot of work to do. - Uh-hmm.
Because I tell you this, if you think
that I'm gonna find that you had cause to break a lease
because you showed us two fleas while outside
and, further to that, they didn't blow you off.
- They came in. - No. That's right.
- [Judge Acker] They bombed. - Uh-hmm.
[Judge Acker] They said, "We're gonna pull up the carpet," which they did.
But you kept complaining
and you kept saying, "No, no, no. More bugs."
I gotta tell you, if I'm in any place
and there are roaches in the refrigerator and fleas behind the oven
and bugs falling out of the sky, I'm gonna take a picture.
So on the 18th, I did bring my brother.
That was his birthday.
And so he came by to my mom's house.
And my sister and I and my brother's partner all went to the apartment
because I was excited to show them that I had finally found a place.
We were all standing in the kitchen, and then my brother was
complaining that he was getting--had bites on him.
That was prior.
They had just fumigated again.
[Judge Acker] Why didn't you bring your brother here?
I didn't know that that was an option.
Can you just tell me roughly,
general estimate, how much money you make a month?
Well, with that job or you're just talking about, you know...
[Judge Acker] Generally. You signed the lease.
You know, you were paying your mom $400 a month.
- [Amal] Uh-hmm. - You signed a lease for almost
four times that amount that you needed to get out of pretty quickly.
- Uh-hmm. - [Judge Acker] It has been suggested
by the defendant as a defense that you just didn't wanna be there.
So I'm wondering if maybe you got a little bit in over your head.
Did you get a big raise or something?
[announcer] Coming up on Tribunal Justice.
I think they were being kind.
And I also think, sir, you were being kind not to file a countersuit.
If you'd filed one, I would have considered that very, very carefully.
[dramatic musical sting]
[theme music plays]
[announcer] Amal Najjar is suing her former landlord,
Peter Perez, for her rent and security deposit
because she claims fleas and roaches kept her from living there.
Peter claims Amal just wanted out of the lease and is making it all up.
It has been suggested by the defendant as a defense
that you just didn't wanna be there.
So I'm wondering if maybe you got a little bit in over your head.
Did you get a big raise or something?
- I did, yeah. - [Judge Acker] How much?
I manage a bike shop, so I make well over $4,000 a month. Yeah.
You were trying to get out of a legal obligation
and you have not one picture of a cockroach,
you have not one picture of fleas in the apartment.
'Cause, frankly, I think they were being kind.
And I also think, sir, you were being kind not to file a countersuit...
- Me too. - ... because if you'd filed one--
yeah, if you'd filed one,
I would have considered that very, very carefully.
Because I am not even sure on this record, even with that admission
By his property manager, that you get to say, "You know what?
I'm out."
Two fleas and a responsive property manager
do not make a case for breaking a lease.
I have nothing further.
Then we are going to retire to deliberate at this time.
- Thank you very much. - Thank you.
[Byrd] Court now stands in recess.
Parties are excused.
[dramatic musical sting]
I'm gonna tell you, I found her testimony very difficult
to lift her over the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence.
She contained in boxes items that would bring bugs anywhere.
It's hard for me to say that she didn't bring some in,
even the dead ones, because if they were sitting in a facility for two years,
there could be some dead, some living.
Not one photograph. That's the thing that drives me crazy.
"My dog had fleas all over. I didn't take a picture of that.
My refrigerator had roaches. I didn't take a picture of that.
I didn't take a picture of anything but these two itty-bitty
things while I was outside."
So I have an issue with that.
The agent of the landlord who at the time was there
when they bombed the apartment,
and she said, "When they bombed, what did they find?"
Maybe it's just the way I'm reading it and that's why text messages
are not always that good.
But she said bugs, which to me almost sounded like
she was just trying to get her off of their back.
Bugs. Never says roaches, never says fleas.
And she was very specific in this case, the plaintiff.
Fleas and roaches.
She says, "We had bugs."
He made a good faith effort to resolve this with her
by giving her her $2,000 back.
I think that once she refused all his offers and they came in here,
like he's saying, everything is off the table
and my inclination is not to give her anything.
Listen, I think that, in her mind,
she was creating a record by sending contemporaneous texts
and that she had met, in her own mind, that proof claim.
And the reason that I believe that she has met her burden,
that there was an infestation
and that her apartment was uninhabitable as a result
was the defendant's testimony when he said,
"My broker never said that there were any bugs."
And--but for the fact that he did not know
that we had that text.
But he doesn't mean she told him.
She was just having these conversations with this girl, with the plaintiff.
He came in--he came in not knowing
about the text that the plaintiff and his broker had exchanged.
And so when he came in, he thought that he'd just be able
to tell us something that could not be contradicted.
The reason the plaintiff did not feel it necessary to take photographs
is because she had the representative
of the defendant acknowledging that the bugs were present.
Not a bug but bugs were present
and that those bugs came from the disgusting,
old carpeting that she suspected contained them.
But, to your point, if she's doing this contemporaneously
with seeing the bugs, just take a picture of the bugs.
But there's not a photograph.
Even in the--she takes a picture of the house
- when she leaves, there's not a bug. - She took a video.
She took a video, which everyone could see
fleas jumping on her pant leg.
- But she was outside. - Two. I saw two fleas outside.
- I know. That's... - I mean, those...
- I saw two fleas. - [Judge Levy] Those are two more
than she walked in there with.
[Judge DiMango] And we don't even know they were fleas.
- Anyway... - [Judge Levy] And so, listen,
I understand what your positions are.
What I'm saying is that there's no legal requirement that there be photographs.
None.
There needs to be evidence, some contemporaneous evidence
you would expect to see of bugs or some type of infestation.
She presented that, albeit in text.
- Uh-hmm. - And she presented it in corroboration
from the defendant's employee.
That's, generally speaking, why I believe that she has met her burden.
And why you'll be dissenting.
[laughter]
Yeah. Yeah. Apparently so.
You know, I--I'm not disputing
that she maybe found some bugs afterwards.
- [Judge DiMango] Uh-hmm. - But in order to have a claim
that rises to the level of uninhabitability,
I need to see more than a text message that says, "Oh, I found another bug."
I don't know if she found an ant.
I don't know if there was a dead fly.
- I don't know anything... - [Judge DiMango] Exactly.
... about the nature and the extent of what she describes
as an uninhabitable condition.
I also, in those contemporaneous texts,
have messages from the property manager,
who after the 17th and pulling up the carpet,
said, "I talked to pest control.
They don't see anything else. Can you take a picture?"
Because, at this point, they're flummoxed.
It is not that hard to take a photograph of something that you think
is so bad that it excuses you from your legal obligation.
So she loses the month of rent.
- And what about her security? - Nothing.
- I'll give her nothing. - I don't wanna give her anything.
- Nothing. - I would dismiss in its entirety.
- Me too. - All right. Thank you.
[dramatic musical sting]
[Byrd] Court is back in session.
Parties are reminded you're still under oath.
- [Judge DiMango] Thank you, Byrd. - [Byrd] You're welcome, Judge.
[Judge DiMango] All right. Now, we are not a unanimous court.
Judge Acker and I have the majority view here.
Judge Levy is in the minority view with this particular case.
He is dissenting.
Judge Levy would have given you back
all your money because he believed that,
based on your testimony, you met your burden of proof
and that your apartment was uninhabitable.
Judge Acker and I don't feel that way.
So we did not find that you met that burden of proof,
which is to convince us by a fair preponderance of the evidence.
The defendant in good faith did try to negotiate with you
and did offer you your security deposit returned.
You refused it.
Therefore, all the prior negotiations,
Judge Acker and I felt, had been washed out.
We are therefore dismissing your complaint in its entirety.
- Thank you very much. - [gavel bangs]
[Byrd] This case has now concluded.
Parties are excused. You may step out.
[theme music plays]
First, there was just one flea that just hopped on my leg.
Well, of course, I wouldn't want anybody to live in a situation like that.
I saw the dead cockroaches.
I think she was trying to better her situation by saying what she had to say.
I think he just didn't want to pay the money and now he doesn't have to.
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["Ride of the Valkyries" plays]