When Tynesia Omopariola moved back to Oklahoma after living in Los Angeles for a decade, she thought she was getting such a break in rent from L.A.’s astronomical rates when she found Izzy Apartments in Oklahoma City.
With prices for a one-bedroom Los Angeles apartment typically exceeding $2,700 per month, Izzy’s rates seemed like a song at $890 for a two-bedroom, along with amenities she said she was promised, including a dishwasher, a stove, a refrigerator and washer and dryer. So, in she moved. And it went downhill from there.
“ I moved in February and I was promised all these amenities,” Omopariola said. “None of them worked or were even rectified until I would say August. Six months in, I put in many work orders.”
One of the most important amenities would be having an apartment that doesn’t flood, she said. Hers has since she moved in. It flooded so often that she eventually bought a shop vac to clear the water regularly.
“The maintenance crews have come over numerous times, but my apartment is still flooding,” she said. “ They know this. They don’t care. They’re just simply getting money in people’s money, in taking their deposits, taking their rent, and so many people are moving out.”
The flooding is so bad that her neighbor’s roof caved in, she said. The owners have not fixed the problem, so Omopariola did what any tenant would be able to in California: she refused to pay her rent until they fixed it.
“ I told them over and over, ‘I’m withholding the rent because of this and (because) I haven’t had the amenities,’” she said. “This will happen to my apartment (roof caving in). What’s going on with my apartment?”
That is how Omopariola ended up in Oklahoma County’s eviction court last week, with a forcible entry and detainer — an eviction notice — filed against her by one of the big three attorneys, Darquita Maggard, who filed more than 3,000 such actions last year.
Unlike most other states, tenants in Oklahoma do not have the right to withhold rent unless their apartment is fixed. It’s grounds for automatic eviction.
Eviction Fast Lane
Tulsa has reaped rewards from its Tulsa Remote program, which offers a $10,000 bonus to remote workers who move from another state to the city to work there. However, many moving from elsewhere might want to look into how Oklahoma’s landlord-tenant laws differ.
Oklahoma Policy Institute’s housing senior policy analyst, Sabine Brown, said that demands for repairs often land new, formerly out-of-state tenants on the curb.
“Tenants don’t have anti-retaliation protections in Oklahoma, and we’re one of only six states that doesn’t have that protection,” Brown said. “So what that means is if a tenant goes to their landlord and asks for repairs to address a health or safety concern like they have standing sewage or a leak, instead of getting that repaired, they could face increased rent, loss of their lease, increased fees, or worst case scenario, even eviction.”
Tulsa recently made a few gains in lowering its eviction rate when the court system there required that a notice for a tenant’s legal resources be stapled to eviction notices. However, even this approach is in many ways too late, especially for tenants who stop paying rent in an attempt to force their landlords to fix problems. After that eviction notice is filed, it becomes much harder to rent again, and can make that tenant’s next apartment far more difficult to obtain.
“An eviction filing is on your record for life,” Brown said. “I think that is an important point that people should know. An eviction filing, even one that is not granted, stays on your record forever. And when you have a housing market that is as tight as what we’re seeing currently, landlords are just not willing to rent to somebody with an eviction on their record.”
In Oklahoma County, that fact was not lost on Omopariola. She is a manager, with an MBA, and a previously clean rental record in Oklahoma. But not now.
”They’re not gonna honor their contract,” she said. “But then that looks bad on me because now I’ll have an eviction on my record and it’s way, way harder to get another apartment because of it.”
Stopping the Trap
The problem is pervasive enough that Oklahoma City University’s Tenant Advocacy Center has recently issued a flyer to its clients, warning them that they can’t just withhold rent, no matter how bad the situation is.
“Think You Don’t Have to Pay Rent Because of Repairs? Think Again,” the flyer warns. “You can’t stop paying rent just because your landlord hasn’t made repairs. You have the right to a safe and livable home, but you can be evicted if you continue to live there and don’t pay your rent.”
According to the flyer, tenants have two options: they can pay for the repairs themselves and take it from the next month’s rent, or they can give the landlord two weeks’ notice to fix the problem. If the landlord doesn’t fix it, they can move out.
But those remedies are trickier than they sound. For one, under Oklahoma law, the tenant must keep paying rent for the unit, even if there is a hole in the roof and water is pouring in, and while doing so, pay for the repairs. That tenant must also keep careful records. Then, the law states, the tenant can deduct the cost of those repairs, provided they do not exceed a full month’s rent.
Or, giving proper notice, move out. Which is the problem with the law, said Mikayla Friede, who until recently was the support staff team leader at Legal Aid Services Oklahoma. At her desk on the sixth floor of the Oklahoma County Courthouse, about 60% of the clients who walked in were dealing with the problem of rental unit repairs not being made by their landlord.
“ If they’re leveraging the only leverage they have, they don’t want to leave,” Friede said. “If they wanted to leave, they would’ve just left, right? The problem is the money doesn’t allow them to move, and the remedy doesn’t give them an option. That’s not an option. You can’t; most people aren’t in a position to move, particularly when they’re not expecting it out of the blue. We’re talking about all our clients being impoverished. They can’t just drop what they’re doing and move.”
The other option, instigating repair work on their own, is just as fraught. Already coming up with the rent for the month, they now have to initiate hundreds of dollars in repairs. Many don’t have that option. Few know they have to keep track of the expenses, carefully document them, then present them to a likely uncooperative landlord. Friede said that is the threshold at which many tenants decide to withhold rent and end up getting evicted.
“The frustrations that ultimately led to things to start a spiral started with repair issues going unaddressed,” Friede said. “Some, when they called initially, when they were in the repair issue phase, trying to find out what their legal rights were, they mentioned intending to withhold rent. Many of those I was able to stop. Unfortunately, I would put about half of our FEDs (forcible entry and detainer) for non-payment specifically for unrepaired or uncompleted repair issues.”
And those tenants usually are forced out of their apartments, she said.
“Not only are there limited remedies, you have to be very explicit to follow the law, or you will still end up evicted for not following the rule,” Friede said.
Amy Coldren, the director of advocacy and communication for Mental Health Association Oklahoma, which works with clients to help prevent evictions, said the repair/rent withholding issue is a major problem for tenants struggling to keep their homes.
”Oklahoma has really complicated laws,” Coldren said. “A lot of tenants incorrectly believe that they can withhold rent if a repair request has not been made. But there is a very specific process that you have to do with a certain timeline and certified letters and all of this. And so if you go to court and you say, ‘I stopped paying my rent because I haven’t had hot water,’ or ‘I haven’t had heat,’ or, or whatever it is …, if you did not go through those steps, then there’s really nothing the judge can do.”
And those records have to be closely followed. In Omopariola’s case, she knew that she couldn’t withhold rent to get her apartment repaired.
“I also spoke with them about it,” Omopariola said. “They discussed rent concessions for that.”
The deal with that manager held. But then the complex changed managers. And then changed again.
“They changed management like four times even since I’ve been there myself,” she said. “And so then a new person will come and say, ‘Well, I don’t know. Did we really say that? Well, how much?’ And then it’s a different story.”
Friede said Omopariola’s case is not unusual.
“ And based on the (rental) agreement, she’s non-compliant,” Mikayla said.
Izzy Apartments, owned by Candlewood Realty LLC, refused comment.
Destructive Animals
Evandra Coleman knew she’d had it with her landlord after the racoon fell through the hole in the ceiling and trashed her daughter’s room trying to get back out.
Sitting on a bench on the sixth floor of the Oklahoma County Courthouse, outside the courtroom where most eviction hearings are held, Coleman clutched the file she had compiled, including photos she’d taken of the hole in her ceiling. In the succession of images taken over several months, the pictures show the hole, which started as only a water stain, but then grow larger and larger with the passing weeks. Finally, she showed one that revealed the tiny, hand-like paw of the unwanted nocturnal visitor.
Subsequent photos showed the wreck of her six-year-old daughter’s room caused by the racoon, who dropped in unexpectedly at 2 a.m. Now, because of her daughter’s nightmares, and the mold, the two have taken to sleeping in the living room.
“ I went to the office at the beginning of September because again,” she pointed to a notice from her landlord, “that’s what this balance here is reflecting. And I was telling her, me and my daughter were sick and we were having migraines and not feeling well. And I was like, I don’t know if it’s from the black mold. ’cause we were, we like to camp out in our living room ’cause and since we’ve been living there, we haven’t done that.”
Sick, she missed work and came up short on the rent. And now, like Omopariola, she found herself in Oklahoma County’s eviction court.
For now, Coleman said, her backup plan is for her and her daughter to move in with her brother and sleep on his couch. At least she won’t be on the street and can look for a new place to live while keeping a roof over her and her daughter’s heads. It would also be good because she could move away from where the mold was making her and her daughter sick.
She looked down at the photos in her file, and the tears flowed.
“It’s not fair,” she said, quietly sobbing outside the courtroom. “It’s not fair.”
It was her eighth time in eviction court, all but one filed by Maggard at Coleman’s previous residence. This time, no attorney was listed. Coleman was able to be represented by Legal Aid Services attorney Lynn Williams.
Court records show her case was continued.
