The fumigated apartments (Photo courtesy Katrina Lewis-Gutierrez)

Last Saturday, Sept. 23, single mother Krystal Childs considered her options: She and her six-year-old son, Kaylon could sleep in her car for three days or she could drop him off with an uncle and she would stay in the car alone. Not much of a choice. She would take Kaylon to his uncle.

Childs, 29, and Kaylon have a home. However, a decision by her landlord to tent her apartment for two days to eradicate a termite infestation upended her life. Childs and other tenants of 6713 Kelly Street in San Diego said the choice to fumigate not only forced them out of their homes temporarily but left them with nowhere to go because the landlord did not offer help with short-term lodging as required by California law. Childs and many of the other tenants receive Section 8 housing vouchers. The voucher program, administered locally by the Public Housing Authority, provides assistance to very low-income families, the elderly, and the disabled to afford housing. They said they can’t afford to pay for motel rooms, even for two days.

“We’re not on Section 8 because we have money,” Childs said. “Where am I going to go with my son? And how am I going to pay for it?”

She filled a plastic bag with clothes and other items she and her son would need while they were away. She called into work at Amazon to explain she would not be in.

“You got your toothbrush, Kaylon?”

“Yeah. Where’re we going?”

“I don’t know.”

Kaylon looked out the door at a woman carrying a bag stuffed with clothes to her car.

“Where you going to sleep, Miss D’ana?” he asked her.
“I don’t know,” she said.

Childs said her landlord told her to call her housing authority worker for assistance but her worker, Childs said, told her she could not help.

“I said to the landlord, ‘Am I to sleep in my car?’” Childs said. “She told me to talk to my family or find a homeless shelter.”

The property owner, Multiwealth Holding LLC, and the landlord did not return numerous phone calls requesting comment.

Childs’ neighbor, Katrina Lewis-Gutierrez, said she had similar conversations with the landlord. Lewis-Gutierrez had been homeless for years before she moved into the Kelly Street complex last January. At first, she said, the staff could not have been more helpful. They fixed whatever needed to be repaired. Termites, she said, had always been a problem. Termite droppings that Lewis-Gutierrez at first thought was dust always lined the baseboards. She did not object to the fumigation plan until she realized the landlord would not help her and the other tenants with temporary housing.

“Those of us who were homeless don’t have family,” she said. “There’s no Uncle Bob I can call. I was told it was not the housing authority’s responsibility to find us housing under these circumstances but the landlord’s. I called the non-emergency police number. They told me I could not be displaced. But I am. I’m not trying to create trouble but what am I to do?”

According to California law, a landlord should pay for a hotel room or similar accommodation when the rental property become uninhabitable due to issues not caused by the tenant. Such issues include severe pest infestation.

Lewis-Gutierrez said she and her partner earn about $1,600 a month and can’t afford a motel room and pay October rent.

“We just paid rent this month [September],” she said. “Now I have to pay for a motel room for two to three days and then pay rent by the first of October. With what? How does that work?”

Text messages between Lewis-Gutierrez and the landlord show her increasing anxiety and frustration.

Have you asked [your housing authority worker] for help for temp housing? the landlord asked in one message.

What she stated to me was housing has nothing to do with finding us places to go. . .all they do is pay the rent, Lewis-Gutierrez responded.

Another message from the landlord asked her again if she had found temp housing for the fumigation? Lewis-Gutierrez answered, Nope. And I’m really not trying to argue or be a pain but I seriously don’t have anywhere to go. I really don’t have family.

Lewis-Gutierrez said the landlord told her that October’s rent would be prorated for the days tenants could not occupy their apartments.

“That’s nice,” Lewis-Gutierre said, “but I still don’t have a place to go now and what I have to pay for a motel room per day will be more than the prorated amount.”

Rodney Aguillard, 62, and his 16-year-old daughter Bella felt grateful they had family that would take them in. However, their good fortune had not made the situation any easier. Tension between tenants with options versus those who did not made for a volatile mix.

“We’re lucky,” Aguillard admitted, “but it’s still screwed up. Neighbor against neighbor now. It was nice in the beginning but this should have been taken care of earlier. We didn’t come here with bugs. Why’re they hear now?”

Last Friday, Sept. 22, a nonprofit provided a motel room for Lewis-Gutierrez. A grandmother of Childs paid for her to stay at the E-Z 8 Motel. While they were getting settled into their rooms, Gutierrez and Childs learned that fumigation teams had entered their apartments without their permission. They said the landlord had not notified them in advance. Lewis-Gutierrez said someone removed her door because the landlord could not find a spare key to open the apartment. California law stipulates that a landlord must provide written notice before entering a tenant’s property. To do otherwise would be in violation of the lease.

“All they were supposed to do was fumigate the place,” Childs said. “I just want to get back home.”