Tenants stealing community property electricity

[Pixee]

Jurisdiction

California

I am on the board of my HOA. We caught a new renter stealing the electricity from the community laundry rooms. The renter had said that they forgot to pay the electricity bill and are using it for the day while "his" mom goes to the Edison. Many of the HOA board has talked with the tenants in a neighborly way. However, 2 days later, they are still plugged into the laundry room. We, the HOA, wants to address the situation but are not sure exactly who we should contact. Can we send a letter to the owner and fine the owner for their tenant? Who is actually responsible? ON a side note these tenants are disruptive , disrespectful, and have been caught on camera stealing packages from another person door.

 

[army judge]

You could start by discussing the matter with the landlord of the alleged thieves, your homeowner member.

In the interim, I'd simply arrange for an electrician to disconnect the power supply to the drop point the thieves are intercepting the electricity.

A call to the fire marshal might do th etrick, along wit one to the building inspectoirs for the city, county, township.

Once that's done, and the authorities have cited the thieves, you can direct the owner to evict the scammers.

Before you start that, you might want to see what the CCRs say about such shenanigans.

 

[Pixee]

Thank you for such great information.

 

[army judge]

Thank you for such great information.

Please return and let us know how loudly the thieves screamed when the electricity stopped flowing, and the inspectors laid some paper on them. LOL

 

[Pixee]

Thank you so much for your feed back.

Ugh, things take so long to do, everyone is afraid to confront. I want to put security cameras up to catch them in the act but people are afraid, that the renters will get worse if they know we are watching them. The bad renters are now stealing lightbulbs from the community lighting and adding adapters, to steal the electricity that way. It seems as though the renters are known to have psychiatric problems. They are now scratching up windows and writing graffiti everywhere. I want to find out all that we can do within the law. There are laws protecting the bad renters, but nothing that protects all the innocent people that get hurt or victimized by the things the bad renters are doing. There is no proof of who is doing the graffiti, but it is in the same area where the bad renters live and started after all this craziness began a few days ago. The owners of that unit, live in another city and when the owners originally lived in our complex, they were a little difficult as well. I hate to live in fear of retaliation. I sent the board your answer, and it has been only a few days, but of course nothing is being done. It has to go through the HOA Board, be voted on, etc. The property management team is on vacation. Not good either. Any and all information is welcomed