Gentle reader,
Los Angeles is chock full of empty buildings, some of them boarded up, others flying under the radar. But a decade+ into this grim housing use crisis, we’ve learned what to look for, and you likely have, too. Our preservation pal C.C. de Vere has a whole blog dedicated to empty L.A., and the recent rash of fires is breaking her heart.
Nearly every night, one burns and the neighbors and firefighters inhale lead paint and asbestos particles that will shorten their lifespans and lower their IQs.
Should you enter the address into the LADBS website, you’ll often find the overvalued flipped structure has been subject to repeated code complaints, each closed out as “no violation” by an “inspector,” or found in violation and given an “abate” order nobody bothers to enforce.
Are the property owners ever held accountable? What do you think? Nothing to see here, Mr. and Mrs. Los Angeles. Move along.
For how long can we expect citizens to do the depressing, unpaid work of documenting dangerous, blighted neighborhood conditions, reporting them to the proper city departments, escalating to elected officials, with nothing ever being done about it?
It’s not like in New York City, where you can collect a bounty for reporting scofflaws, enough to live on. Angelenos who do this work get nothing but madder.
You’re not squeaky wheels, you’re human beings! And we, who have demonstrated some tenacity / talent for forcing the city to do its job, are tired of fielding pleas for help from exasperated Angelenos. If it stopped, Kim might write that sequel to her mystery novel readers keep asking about.
It’s infuriating. Just like enough housing exists for everybody, all of the resources are here for Los Angeles to be a great place to live—extant laws, funds to enforce them. But watch the video above, grit your teeth and listen to councilmember Monica Rodriguez describe five years of she and everybody else passing the buck on the illegal toxic dump and stolen car collection in La Tuna Canyon: this "can't do" attitude is dragging the city down.
Angelenos care, but they struggle against a City Hall establishment that seemingly hates them and doesn’t want to hear what they think. If councilmembers just sat down with engaged Angelenos (or paid attention during public comment) in addition to the insults and funny voices that go with the job, they’d hear practical solutions worth implementing.
But what if the actual power in City Hall isn’t wielded by elected officials at all, but by bureaucrats? Encouraging politicians and constituents to distrust and attack each other would serve their interests. We suspect this is happening, and are eager to see where Jamie T. Hall’s Crane Boulevard Safety Coalition pre-PLUM inquiry takes us.
Back to empty buildings. These include the illegal Airbnbs and other nightly rentals, ostensibly “occupied”—but not by anyone who is meant to be there.
The tenants displaced by landlords and leaseholders gaming the system, or who choose to leave because their once pleasant home has turned into an unlicensed tourism zone, are our friends and neighbors, small business owners and workers. Each one pushed out makes Los Angeles something less than it ought to be.
Taking housing away from people invested in community hurts everyone. Airbnb guests don’t call if they notice a weirdo lurking around your gate, don’t bring the mail in or watch your cat. They don’t come to parties with their famous blackout cake. No cactus cuttings, no holiday decorations, no laughs shared, no relationship evolving over time and shared experiences.
By turning L.A. housing into transient lodging, we all suffer higher rents, greater blight and an incalculable loss of fellowship.
We’ve written about this before: the “hotel” whose owner sued an independent journalist for reporting on RSO tenant complaints, the housing arbitrage hustlers renting out a unit in Charles Bukowski’s bungalow court, the fire that displaced dozens from coffin-cabinets in the ARN radio studio building in East Hollywood, and (scroll down in this post) how City Council has let Airbnb enforcement die in committee for years—as well as the DOJ bombshell that Mark Ridley-Thomas let an Airbnb lobbyist write legislation before his conviction on public corruption charges.
So it was a pleasant surprise scrolling Twitter last month to learn from someone in the home share business that L.A.’s City Attorney had just filed a civil suit against a self-described Airbnb “influencer.”
We got a copy of the court filing on June 24 and published it, then waited for the media to report out the story, or the City Attorney’s office to make an official statement.
Here’s what we wrote on June 24: WHOA! After sitting on citizen complaints for years, the LA City Attorney has filed an unfair competition and conspiracy civil suit against Ukrainian Airbnb influencer Vladyslav Yurov ("vladbnb") for turning RSOs into illegal nightly rentals, teaching others to do it, and ripping off Airbnb with fake damage claims. We have a lot of questions about this case. Why go after a foreign national (no extradition from Ukraine) who claims to own no property and with only a few RSO units in his portfolio, when local landlords are taking hundreds of units of affordable housing off the market?
Vlad Yurov’s social media accounts were still active, so we watched his videos promoting his secondary business: teaching others how to set up automated Airbnb listings in leased properties. It was all pretty familiar stuff from our reporting on Rebecca Slivka's and Erica Beers' Pillow and Coffee scheme, though Yurov had more suburban houses to their small apartments.
We even messaged vladbnb for a copy of his handy how-to guide. But it appeared that his automated Instagram responder was on the fritz and we got nothing.
Reading the city’s filing, we’d wondered, out of all the sketchy home share operators, why this guy? Could it have something to do with the second half of the complaint, which laid out in excruciating detail how Yurov had allegedly defrauded Airbnb with fake damage claims—odd, because other hosts complain that the internal Aircover insurance policy is a scam that doesn’t pay out.
It seemed bizarre that somebody could be sued for $15 Million and still be posting comic it’s my birthday memes, but Vlad Yurov was doing just that. Thinking it couldn’t last, we downloaded a few of his more revealing / obnoxious videos.
LAist finally picked the story up on July 10, with a quote from Yurov via Instagram: “[my] legitimate business was no longer welcome in the city of Los Angeles and it was closed. So it’s not operating anymore.” On the same day, the City Attorney announced the lawsuit.
And sure enough, Yurov’s social media went dark.
We’re publishing six short videos from the now deleted Vladbnb Instagram account in the public interest, including Yurov’s bootstraps autobiography, tips for using virtual $5/hour assistants and apps to automate home share bookings, change the locks and “fix” nightly prices, and how to claim damages from Airbnb.
Stick around to the end if you’d like to know what he thinks about homeless people.
If LAist or any other media outlets want to do more reporting on the Vladbnb empire, they need not hit the brick wall of a deleted social media account. Because it turns out there’s more going on in the legal battle between Yurov and City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, and it deserves a deeper dive.
For one thing, Vlad Yurov started it—on May 1, with a complaint for declaratory relief filed against the City! And Yurov’s attorney, Thomas A. Nitti, might have a lot to say, if asked.
Nitti has been working the outskirts of landlord/tenant law for decades, representing some of the first property owners who sought to “go out of the rental business” using the Ellis Act in 1986. This controversial state law has contributed to the loss of an enormous amount of affordable, historic housing stock, with some buildings demolished and others held vacant for years.
More recently, Nitti has represented the owner of a rent controlled Venice apartment building operating as the Ellison Hotel, arguing that the city’s Short-term Rental Ordinance is actually illegal.
A similar argument is made in Skysun LLC and Vladyslav Yurov v. City of Los Angeles (24STCV10998), a case filed in response to the City issuing investigative subpoenas and threatening to sue Yurov for violating the Home Sharing Ordinance.
Nitti seeks to have a judge rule that Yurov has a vested right to continue renting out Los Angeles apartments by the night. A case management conference is scheduled for 9am on 10/23/2024 in Department 3 of the Stanley Mosk Courthouse.
A few weeks after Yurov filed papers on the City, the City retaliated with its $15 Million civil suit, and Yurov closed his business.
Yes, Los Angeles is full of empty buildings. Some have been that way for a long time.
While looking up other clients Thomas Nitti has represented, we noticed a familiar address: 255 South Reno Street in Rampart Village. This was a pretty, empty 1913 Craftsman house that burned up last February, displacing tenants from apartments on either side. Neighbors had been complaining about break-ins at the empty home.
In 2013, Thomas Nitti’s client Balubhai G. Patel sought to reverse the placement of his 65-unit building at 718 South Union Avenue into REAP until it could be brought back up to code, on the grounds that a notice mailed to the (presumably unoccupied) Reno Street address had not been received in a timely manner.
The building put into REAP, the Stuart Hotel, is a rent stabilized apartment house in which home sharing is not allowed under Los Angeles law. However, as is the case with thousands of apartments that should be homes for Angelenos, you can book a room by the night—if you dare.
Reading those yucky Stuart Hotel Yelp reviews has made us itchy, but we’ll be all scratched out by Sunday at noon, when you’re invited to take a very special walk back in time, the Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness tour. This one features psychic messages from the last Ice Age, art pranksters, Art Deco ghosts, Cold War anxiety and so much more, all set in the footprint of filmmaker Steve de Jarnatt’s beautiful end of the world love story.
Also, both late July Know Your Downtown L.A. tours are now sold out, but we’ve still got room for you on the newly listed August 17 date. Join us, do!
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
Our work—leading tours and historic preservation and cultural landmark advocacy—is about building a bridge between Los Angeles' past and its future, and not allowing the corrupt, greedy, inept and misguided players who hold present power to destroy the city's soul and body. If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of this newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. You can share this post to win subscriber perks. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking and bus tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.
UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS
• Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness (Sun. 7/21) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop (Sat. 7/27 - sorry, sold out) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop (Sun. 7/28 - sorry, sold out) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sun. 8/4) • West Adams Sugar Hill and Angelus Rosedale Cemetery (Sat. 8/10) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop (Sat. 8/17) • Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess (Sun. 8/25) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown Los Angeles (Sat. 8/31)• Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Tract (Sat. 9/7) • Highland Park Arroyo (Sat. 9/21) • The Real Black Dahlia (Sat. 9/29) • The Run: Gay Downtown L.A. History (Sun. 10/13) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sun. 10/27) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip (Sun. 11/3)
CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS
Here’s the Preservation Imp with a Route 66 Centennial Wish for the Aztec Hotel, a National Register marvel in Monrovia, currently closed up and desperately in need of a new operator. Can this landmark come back to life? Sure—just listen to the imp!
R.I.P. Dong Il Jang at 8th and Hobart, a legacy Koreatown business closed down and left unsecured to burn, saving demo costs for the developer and scorching the neighbors' lungs. What will it take for L.A. to hold property owners accountable to secure their empty buildings?
Three Stooges on the 110: New public art installed in Downtown Los Angeles. Blink and you'll—nyuck nyuck nyuck—miss it!
We've been hearing about this unique property for some time, and it's about to become available via The Value of Architecture, seeking a third steward who appreciates something very quirky: The House With the Plywood Skin (Lawrence Test, 1949).
In a disturbing TikTok video, the_gezus shows Angelenos how Jamison, Koreatown's biggest property owner, is subjecting the "protected" Art Deco landmark Wilshire Professional Building to demolition by neglect. The city knows, does nothing about it.
Gay Angelenos engaged in some of the most creative, effective protest actions ever seen in America. And yet somehow it's the myth of a Cooper Do-Nuts riot at 5th & Main, where no shop even existed, that is on view at LACMA as a new addition to Judy Baca's "Great Wall of Los Angeles." It's a giddy image, but pure fiction, as revealed in Nathan Marsak's deep do-nut dive. The world got changed by members of L.A.'s queer community. We think it shows contempt for their achievements to celebrate fictional heroes and heroines, and when you ignore the real past, you get things like the pending demolition of Westlake's oldest gay bar, the Silver Platter, and councilmember Eunisses Hernandez pretending there is nothing she can do about it. There is a lot she could do, if she cared. Getting history right is hard, but worth it.
Does the City of Los Angeles care about making its archives more accessible to historians and the general public? Apparently not!
Citizens for a Better Los Angeles appeal Sentral at Inspire Hollywood "apartment" building and its post hearing scheme to sell booze in a massive party pad. The allegations about the unrented “affordable” units in a building that’s only this big because it’s supposed to be housing Angelenos is horrifying.
An inspiring obituary for civil rights activist, historian and preservation powerhouse Dr. Enid Pinkney. Very few people leave their city so changed, but with grit and guts and the certainty that heritage matters, she did!
Wabash Market at Wabash and Evergreen came down today (1929-2024). The Survey LA listed potential landmark had no chance to be adaptively reused or even salvaged, because Karen Bass' secretive program ED 1 is pure blight and not city planning. Still standing last night, but this was the ugly scene this morning. R.I.P.
The Worst of Airbnb "Influencer" Vladyslav Yurov... and why the Los Angeles City Attorney really dropped the hammer on Vladbnb