Credit Check Fees Deluge Bay Area Renters

"...It's ridiculous. I paid about $400 in credit report fees before I ever found an apartment... In San Francisco you used to have landlords who would put an apartment listing in the newspaper and get 100 to 150 people to come look at the place... they'd charge each applicant $75 for a credit check... In the most egregious cases... unscrupulous landlords would list apartments that had already been rented... then collect credit report fees from applicants, without ever ordering or paying for a credit report..." (San Francisco Chronicle 9/29/97)

HUD Alleges Discrimination by
Worcester Housing Agency

"...the firm... allegedly would not show minorities homes owned by "Archies" — a code word for prejudiced landlords that referred to the bigoted Archie Bunker character of television's All in the Family..." (Boston Globe 10/02/97)

Cop Trap Nabs "The Landlord From Hell"

"...the suspect allegedly plotted to kill two tenants in a rent-controlled building because they only paid $300 a month rent....a hit man turned informant told police the landlord planned to kill the tenants, one man and one woman, by administering an illegal dosage of drugs... cops arrested the landlord on Wednesday, and found three rifles, a shotgun, a .22-caliber pistol and 200 rounds of ammunition in his Brooklyn home. He was carrying $9,000 in cash when he was busted..." (New York Post 10/03/97)

Renton Officials Struggle for Solution to Mentally Ill Man Who Exposes Self

"...ten times in the past year he has been charged with indecent exposure, often after dropping his pants in an apartment window overlooking the swimming pool at the Renton complex where he lives... each time he was jailed and taken to court, only to be released as incompetent to stand trial but not deranged enough to be committed to a mental institution..." (News Tribune, Tacoma 9/22/97)

Miscellaneous Articles

"...A San Francisco landlord has been ordered to pay $12 million in damages in connection with a 1996 deck collapse that claimed the life of one woman and injured 14 others..." (San Francisco Chronicle, 4/9/98)

"...Kay Management Co. has agreed to set up a $250,000 fund to repay any family that may have been discriminated against by the company's occupancy limits at seven of its apartments in the Washington (D.C.) area... The Fair Housing Council had charged Kay with violating federal fair-housing laws and regulations that require landlords to allow two people per bedroom in an apartment..." (Washington Post, 3/21/98)

"...A Wasilla (AK) landlord who secretly spied on tenants through two-way mirrors and peepholes connected to a series of hidden passageways pleaded no contest Wednesday to burglary and indecent viewing..." (Anchorage Daily News, 3/26/98)

"...A landlord was convicted Friday of murdering five men in a feud that started with a bounced rent check..." (Los Angeles Times, 4/25/98)

"...[the tenants] couldn't get a king-size mattress up the stairs. They took a chain saw to the hallway. They cut the whole corner right off just so they could turn the mattress around the corner...." (The Toronto Star, 7/7/98)

"...the well-dressed, clean-cut tenant showed ID and flashed a large roll of cash to pay for rent and security deposit... three days later he was arrested for a parole violation (under his real name) and returned to prison..." (Toledo Business Blade, 7/19/98)