I don’t know what part of California you live in, but I can tell you that the county of Los Angeles and the city of Redondo Beach don’t give a flying fig what kind of uninhabitable dwelling you’re being forced to live in.
My husband and I were forced to live in an apartment (where I’d been a tenant in good standing for 10 years!) with a broken water pipe directly under our unit, which caused all the cabinets and walls in my kitchen and bedroom to become covered in mold and mildew, every individual slat in our hardwood floors to buckle, the kitchen linoleum to come up at the seams, and slugs to climb up behind the baseboards, which had pulled away from the walls.
As if this weren’t bad enough, our slumlord refused to provide adequate trash pickup (the dumpster overflowed every single week), or seal off the access points into the crawl space below us, or between the crawl space and our unit, which resulted in rats nesting in and infesting our unit. You don’t even want to know the volumes of rat feces that was in the water heater closet, let alone what we picked up off the middle of the floor every day, or found under furniture when we moved it.
We called and asked nicely. We wrote pleading letters and then firmly stated requests for repair, all sent via Certified Mail, all of which were Returned To Sender unopened. We filed complaints with the city of Redondo, who did absolutely nothing at all, and the county Health Department, who came out twice, did thorough inspections and wrote the (known to them for other similar violations!) slumlord up for numerous violations, including all of the above, plus broken windows, peeling exterior paint and uncapped sewer pipes, all of which he roundly ignored.
The Health Dept. called him into their offices for an administrative hearing. He thumbed his nose at them by no-showing. So they turned him over to the District Attorney, who scheduled a hearing and subpoenaed him to appear. Wanna try guessing how he responed to the D.A.? Yup, he no-showed. Did they file charges against him? HA!
The final straw was when the towels we’d stuffed under the bedroom doors at night in an effort to protect ourselves, failed to keep the rats out, and one of them chewed its way through and proceeded to jump up in my bed and run up my leg!! Of course we had no choice but to move into a motel, and of course we had withheld rent pending proper repairs being completed. That didn’t stop him from posting a Notice to Pay or Quit (illegally) or suing us for Unlawful Detainer (illegally), even though he knew he didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of prevailing – the sole purpose of which was to try to intimidate us into paying or quitting and to force us to have to plunk down hundreds of dollars in court fees to file a response (he even tried to RAISE our rent during all this!). And because he knew he wouldn’t win and it was all an exercise in extortion, he dropped his case the morning it was to be heard.
At that point, we had no choice but to find someplace else to live, since he clearly wasn’t going to fix the problems and there were serious health and safety risks. So when we had most of our things out of the apartment itself (we still had a few personal belongings inside) and quite a bit of stuff stored in the garage, but were still fighting the UD (we’d be damned if we’d allow a judgment against us, even if we were already in the process of moving!), the SOB broke into our apartment (which we still had lawful possession of) and changed all the locks. When we called the police and had all the locks changed again, he just showed up the next day and had the door completely removed from the hinges and taken off the property. Did the police do anything? <SNORT!!>
The pig owes us thousands of dollars in hotel bills, moving expenses and other fines we’re entitled to collect for all the illegal crap he pulled on us. Would we ever, in a million years, be able collect? I think you can answer that question without assistance.
And you had a few days where you had to either take a cold shower or shower at the club? Believe me, you won’t win on that one, even if it technically falls under the umbrella of habitability.
These guys hold all the cards. They’re the ones with the money and the power and the bank of lawyers. Don’t fuck with them. Pay your rent in full and start looking for another place to live. You’ll only regret it if you don’t. The state may have laws that look like they’re supposed to protect you, but when it comes to enforcing them, you’re on your own. Good luck!