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Alison Weinsweig told BI she lost more than $170,000 in rent and spent nearly three years trying to evict a tenant.
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When she finally gained access to the apartment, she found it in disarray.
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She said she cried when she saw the floor stained with blood, cigarette burns and a life-size doll.
When Alison Weinsweig, 67, rented his luxurious apartment in Westwood for a tenant in 2020, she never imagined this would turn into a nearly three-year ordeal, let alone one that would cost her more than $200,000.
It was a “tension on many levels,” she told Business Insider.
“I felt terribly violated,” she added. “I never thought I would get him out of there. I thought I would be stuck with him for the rest of my life.”
When Weinsweig finally gained access to her property in April, she found it in a strange state of disarray, which made her cry.
Images provided to BI appear to show blood-stained floors, cracked countertops and, disturbingly, a life-size human mannequin.
Now she’s picking up the pieces, having to shell out thousands of dollars for repairs, according to contractor estimates seen by BI, on top of the more than $170,000 she said she’s already lost in unpaid rent.
Weinsweig, a semi-retired real estate agent, bought the two-bedroom penthouse on Wilshire Boulevard in 2004 and lived there for a decade before moving to Pennsylvania to be with her ailing mother.
She had previously rented the property to two tenants without any problems and hoped that Ramin Kohanim’s rent would be no different.
“He appeared to be a reasonable tenant,” she said, noting that a landlord had screened him, showing a Social Security number, an acceptable credit score and an account with significant funds.
But Weinsweig said that even if there were “red flags,” she probably would have ignored them — she was too focused on her mother getting better.
She explained that the first year of Kohanim’s lease was unremarkable, despite some late payments. But after he signed for his second year in July 2021, things got complicated.
“He paid the first month and never paid anything again,” says Weinsweig.
Kohanim and his lawyer did not respond to BI’s requests for comment.
Despite repeated apologies, Weinsweig says she hasn’t received rent for months, prompting her to take legal action in January 2022.
According to legal documents analyzed by BI, the tenant was subject to the COVID-19 Tenant Relief Actwhich prevented evictions due to non-payment of rent for people struggling due to the pandemic.
After Kohanim’s rent assistance application was approved, Weinsweig received a fraction of the lost rent and the case was automatically dismissed that summer.
Later that year, Weinsweig filed another lawsuit seeking possession of the premises and monetary damages, but it did not go as planned.
After dismissing her lawyer and the case, she finally rehired her first lawyer and waited LA County Eviction Moratorium will expire in March 2023.
It would take months of deliberation before the parties reached an agreement, but under the terms of a sentence set for November 2023, Kohanim was ordered to leave in April this year.
According to legal documents reviewed by BI, Weinsweig agreed to pay the tenant $20,000, half of which was to be held in trust only to be paid as soon as he had vacated the property and followed the terms and conditions.
Although this seemed unfair, Weinsweig thought it would give her a sense of finality, she said.
Kohanim left the property in April, but Weinsweig claims his former tenant has yet to return the keys or fob. However, this was the least of his worries.
According to a transcript reviewed by BI, at a May 23 hearing in California State Superior Court for Los Angeles County, Weinsweig told the court that the apartment was left in “absolutely deplorable” conditions.
She told the BI and the court that when she arrived at the property, she saw cigarette burns and trash everywhere, and what appeared to be blood on the bedroom and bathroom floor.
Images provided to BI and the court appear to show the damage.
Other images provided to BI also appear to show a life-size doll on the bathroom floor next to zip-tie packages. It’s unclear why they were there.
Quotes from contractors, shared with BI by Weinsweig, suggest repairs it can cost upwards of $24,000.
During the hearing, Kohanim admitted that there was “discharge” on a mattress, although he and his lawyer considered the rest of the damage to be normal “wear and tear.”
The defense did not suggest at the hearing that the images were staged or unreliable.
Kohanim’s lawyer told the court that his client was not the “best tenant in the world” or the cleanest, but refuted that the apartment had been intentionally destroyed.
The judge disagreed, stating that “80 square feet of blood is not normal wear and tear.”
He ordered that the withheld $10,000 be returned to Weinsweig and that the box be opened.
Weinsweig said he wanted the case opened to share knowledge of his ordeal. For her, this is a small victory worth keeping.
“I felt vindicated when they removed the seal because not only was I subjected to all these injustices… but I was forced to keep the secret,” she said, adding: “This cannot go unnoticed.”
Read the original article at Business Insider
