No fridge? No more. Newsom signs bill requiring apartment landlords to supply appliances

The days of Los Angeles landlords telling renters to bring their own fridge will soon be over. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law on Monday requiring rental property owners to supply their tenants with a working refrigerator and stove.

Assembly Bill 628 will apply statewide when it takes effect next year. But fridge-less apartments have long been a notorious feature of L.A.’s rental market, and less common in other cities.

The Los Angeles Times reported in 2022 that L.A. and Orange counties have the fewest units with refrigerators among large urban areas nationwide. Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, a Democrat representing a district that includes Inglewood and Hawthorne, introduced the bill.

The California Rental Housing Association, a landlord advocacy group, opposed the legislation. Adam Pearce, the association’s president, said in a statement last month: “AB 628 creates another costly and unnecessary mandate on housing providers at a time when operating costs are already skyrocketing.”

LA renters post fridge frustration on social media

Apartment hunters regularly take to social media to express their bafflement about L.A.'s bring-your-own-fridge units.

TikTok user raerae2xs206 recently posted a viral video where she toured an L.A. apartment asking for $2,495 per month. She noted the unit had bars on the door and windows, a bathtub she described as “tiny” and bedrooms she felt were “the size of a peanut box.”

To top it all off, the apartment “doesn’t even come with an oven or refrigerator,” she said.

Film director and writer Thunder Levin said earlier this year on X, formerly Twitter, that his first apartment in L.A. came with no fridge. “Which was the craziest thing I'd ever heard,” he wrote.

Larry Gross, executive director of a local tenant advocacy group called the Coalition for Economic Survival, said a change in the law was “long overdue.”

“One would think that having a refrigerator is a necessity,” Gross said. “But legally, appliances — prior to this — were considered amenities. We don't see this as an amenity. It's a basic necessity, just like it is to have running water and heat.”

What the new law requires and when

Under the new law, apartments will be considered uninhabitable if they do not come with a working refrigerator and stove. Tenants can also bring their own fridge if they choose to do so and their landlord agrees, according to the law.

Some types of housing will be exempt from the law, such as permanent supportive housing units for formerly unhoused people, single-room occupancy units and buildings that provide communal kitchen spaces, including assisted living facilities.

The law will take effect Jan. 1.