Roderick nails it in one. No one who actually understands Section 8 would be making these suggestions. Vent away.
brujaja, I’m eternally grateful to the kind home care workers who helped with my dad - in his comfortable, well-maintained, fully-paid-off home. What you’re doing is heroic. Bless you, and vent whenever you please.
I’m sorry that there are so many people in this country (and, of course, the world), living lives that they either did not choose or, anyhow, would not choose if they were given the choice again, and feel cheated because of that. It’s astonishing how many people, even the extremely well-off, that applies to. But it just seems that if we just started over and adopted a Rawlsian system, which used to seem to me to be the fairest thing, it would fail just because of the fact that every person imagines fairness to be a uptopia that is a meritocracy that somehow ends up with them at the top. Which misjudges utopia, Rawls, and meritocracy all at the same time.
This landlord may be awful, and greedy, and, given her husband’s recent disability, and her inability to keep up with both his and their tenants’ recent demands, maybe also worth a little sympathy, as your client is.
By all means make sure the landlord complies with the law, of course. But try not to assume malice or some other reason: eating a cat never made anybody refuse to call a plumber, so far as I know.
Dogs are not slaughtered humanely. Not even close. The entire mythos around it is to dispatch the animal in the cruelest fashion possible, all so the meat will “have more adrenaline in it” and thus have the magical power to “increase stamina” (give a man an erection). It has nothing to do with “meat is meat”. For these reasons, anyone consuming dog in Asia should be roundly condemned.
Run, don’t walk, to your nearest tenant advocacy group … this web page gives the basics: “California Tenant Rights to Withhold Rent or ‘Repair and Deduct’.” and it has the California statutes listed for your reference …
You’ve been doing the landlady’s job so your client can continue living there … I’m guessing the Section 8 inspector is turning a blind eye to these infractions for the same reason … yes, you could force the landlady to install a heating system (c.f. CA Civil Code §1941.1(4)), but she’ll just kick everyone out, install the heating system and rent to new tenants … and at a much higher rent …
I understand why your client likes living in the Bay Area … one hell of a lot of people want to live there … the City and County of San Francisco cannot annex any more land, only the 3/4 million willing to pay out their nose will ever live there … has she thought of maybe moving to Weaverville or Yuba City or something? … my grandmother had to live in the sand dunes on the west side of town when her own place burnt down in 1906, by 1970 she couldn’t afford to live there and had to move away from the area … it’s a shame but it’s better than Detroit (“The bullet proof windows are working but the bullets still come through the walls”) …
I would also point out that there really does exist a span of time where a person can live independently but they can’t move to a new situation. They may be physically incapable of packing and unpacking a household, and of handling living in a half-put together home while to process is settled. Past that, there’s psychological and physical concerns: if you’ve lived in a place for a long time, you know where everything is, you’ve made a series of compromises and jury-rigged a bunch of solutions to your physical limitations over time. Every old person I ever knew who lived independently had some weird ways of doing things–like “this broom stick is just the right size to hook under the dryer door and hold it open” sort of thing, or the grocery down the street makes an exception and delivers for them just because. People have hundreds of these sorts of solutions. They can’t be recreated in a new house or apartment: the person is only going to leave in an ambulance, or with a single bag of clothes and a box of keepsakes to take to an assisted living situation.
So I’ve heard, hence the disclaimer. We’re talking theory here, not practice - fact is I am never, ever going to be in that position so it is a pretty moot point.
It’s just I think you gotta recognize the cultural hypocrisy. I don’t think a young kid that raises a lamb for 4H loves it any less than a puppy, but most of those cute little lambs still end up as chops. I mean I think if I looked down an everyone who ate nasty-ass, slimy beef liver, I’d be a bit of an asshole ;). And I do try to save my assholery for the really important stuff - like nitpicky historical pedantry and wagging my fingers at people who frown on eating cats :p.
But this a bit of hijack. The main thing is being stuck on Section 8 is very necessary for survival for some folks, but can also very much suck in practice.
Yea, and life is a bitch, and then you die. Hmmm, but I can’t make myself think there is nothing that can be done to help elderly, disabled people. I am Pollyanna-ish enough to believe in hope. There are good people, somewhere. I have seen it.
If you have not had to deal with Section 8 housing in the Bay Area, you may be a bit more sanguine than is warranted.
You’re probably right. I will shut-up now.
What cultural hypocrisy? The lamb isn’t subjected to having its fur burnt off while the animal is alive all in the name of giving someone an erection. There’s quite a difference in how animals are slaughtered in the West compared to how dogs dedtined for “health stew” are treated.
Back to the topic. I’m wondering if the OP’s client’s landlady has other section 8 tenants and, if so, how a class action suit would go if the tenants could get someone pro bono.
I mean, I wonder how many other Section 8 tenants she has.
Apparently not more than one. brujaja mentions that the property is a duplex with a converted basement, and implies that the owners live in one of the units. It’s not clear whether a basement is eligible to be made into a Section 8 unit, so brujaja’s client could be the only Section 8 tenant.
Adding to the chorus of Bay Area residents: The housing shortage really is that bad. Brujaja’s client, an elderly and frail lady, is probably not up to the task of memorizing the compendium of state and local tenants rights laws and going to tenant group meetings every week, and standing up to a hostile landlady. That’s what you have to do to keep your place nowadays. Stand your ground, and not like Zimmerman did, either. A lot of small-time landlords really are that bad. They buy up a few places, and then run them into the ground, all while abusing and antagonizing their tenants till they get sued and everyone’s bankrupted.
They are bottom-feeders. It doesn’t even make economic sense for them to do what they’re doing, but they’re stupid. Whether they’re immigrants or not is immaterial. Americans can be equally stupid; my American landlords are just as bad, if not worse, than this landlady.
I had to learn to stand in the face of empty threats and not lose my cool. Not easy. They can’t evict you on a whim. But someone who is physically helpless is in an especially bad position.
I would suggest all tenants in the building form a union and find group representation. (I guess there are only 3 units, but still). Having group action makes it more meaningful plus you get some moral support which helps A LOT. It’s going to be a long drawn out battle any way you fight it.
See if landlady owns any other properties and, if so, get those tenants involved as well.
The business of the landlady being aware of whether or not brujaja’s client put the recycle bin out on pickup day strikes me as a pretty strong indicator that she and her husband are occupying one of the three units.
Possibly relegating themselves to the basement unit, so as to be able to rent out the unit that commands the higher price.
ETA: Nothing brujaja has posted so far has led me to suspect that she owns more than the one property.
It’s in the second line of the OP: “properties”. 
That either means more than one property or the two units in the one property.
Call the city inspections office, tell them your concerns, invite them to inspect your unit.
Likely for a first offense they’re just going to give your landlord a list of things that need to be ‘corrected’ before their next visit.
Unless the unit is deemed uninhabitable, of course.
I don’t know why Chinese people yell so much: there must be something cultural about it.
But I do know that Chinese people tend to sound angry anyway because they carry-over the “angry” tone as interference from their primary language. The Chinese languages are tonal, which means they can’t use falling tones to indicate anger, which means they don’t hear falling tones to indicate anger which means they don’t learn English tonal patterns.
I remember that Agatha Christie’s second husband promised himself that he would never yell at Egyptians – only to realize that Egyptians believed that anyone not yelling (by his English standard) didn’t have anything that they were trying to .communicate.
Personally, I believe that some people yell angrily because they are assholes. But I give some slack to people I don’t personally have to deal with
It’s not brujaja’s landlord or her unit. She helps take care of an elderly lady who’s a Section 8 tenant. I’m sure her time and energy to be an advocate for her client are somewhat limited.