[dropcap size=big]I[/dropcap]t started on a Monday – Feb. 5, 2018 – with an anxious group of tenants gathered on the sidewalk before their home, the Burlington Avenue Apartments. That day, unbeknown to those involved, would spark the largest rent strike in the history of Los Angeles.
“We didn’t know each other, we were just outraged,” said renter Ray Estrada. “We felt like we needed to do something.”
A few days earlier, every unit across the trio of multistory apartment buildings in Westlake had received notice of rent hikes of 20 to 40 percent. Many renters knew they couldn’t pay, but even for those who could, forking over several hundred dollars more each month didn’t square with years of inhumane treatment the tenants had endured.
Shared stories of abuse and appalling living conditions — filthy common areas, cruel property managers, roaches, rats, and sewage floods, to name a few — pulsed through the fearful crowd that day, the first beats of something much larger to come.
“I didn’t even know the [issues] that other people were having in their units until we got together and I started hearing the stories,” Estrada said. “That’s when I got shocked. I had to take two, three steps back.”