Imperfect Paradise: How the Rent Brigade took on LA’s landlords

California Love

LAist Studios

Music

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the days after LA’s early-January wildfires, tenant advocate Chelsea Kirk noticed a trend: rent gouging. Rents were shooting up past their legal limit. In the wake of the fires, as natural disaster collided with LA’s severe housing shortage, we trace how a collective of volunteers organized themselves to bring rent gouging to light in LA County. What did they find? And where do we stand on rent gouged listings and charges, four months later?

Grow your business–no matter what stage you’re in. Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at SHOPIFY.COM/paradise

Visit www.preppi.com/LAist to receive a FREE Preppi Emergency Kit (with any purchase over $100) and be prepared for the next wildfire, earthquake or emergency!

Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, it's Jacob Margolis. I'd like you to stop what you're doing and ask yourself, where is my
0:05.0	emergency kit? If you don't have a good answer, then I highly recommend visiting preppy.com
0:10.2	slash LAist for a free emergency kit with any purchase over $100. That's preppy, P-R-E-P-P-I-com
0:19.5	slash LAist.
0:22.7	Have you entered our spring super sweeps?
0:25.9	You could win a new BMW or $30,000 in cash.
0:30.4	Upweight e-bikes, a staycation at Marriott Long Beach downtown, or a fender guitar.
0:33.5	You're automatically entered when you donate $60 for local news.
0:36.1	Give now at LAS.com slash sweeps.
0:45.1	On January 10th, three days into L. historic wildfires, Chelsea Kirk was curled up on her couch in her Echo Park apartment.
0:49.1	By then, we were starting to get a sense of the devastation.
0:54.2	Ten people had been reported killed and over 12,000 structures damaged.
0:59.9	And while I and most people I know were glued to the news, doom-scrolling Instagram,
1:04.4	Chelsea was engrossed in a different corner of the internet.
1:09.5	I immediately went to Zillow and one of my first thoughts was,
1:11.2	the rent's going to go up.
1:15.4	And it was probably the first listing I looked at,
1:19.0	the $12,000 house in my neighborhood of Echo Park,
1:23.1	three bedrooms, but it wasn't new construction, $12,000 a month.
1:28.8	I knew rents were expensive here, but $12,000 didn't seem reasonable to me.
1:35.4	So I scrolled down the listing, came across the description, but said this could be available short-term if needed, furnished if needed. It was very clearly being advertised to displaced
1:42.1	victims of the LA wildfires.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 19 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from LAist Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of LAist Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.