From contributor Thérèse Bachand

Hi, my name is Thérèse Bachand, and I am an artist and native Californian. Until the end of last June, I had lived for 42 years in LA and just shy of 33 years in the Westdale/Mar Vista community. I did not leave willingly. I am writing this from Minneapolis, Minnesota.

My X and I raised two daughters in the area in a rented home next door to an amazing cactus garden. At that time, in 1993, the local school was not good; my daughters were already enthusiastic students at UES (now the UCLA Lab School), then Marlborough, and then Stanford and Brown. I am education poor. After their departure and the end of my relationship to their father, I took in roommates to help cover the cost of rent. By and large, I enjoyed their various presences.

My former neighborhood is located just east of the Santa Monica Airport. Neighbors Joan Winters and Marty Rubin, who both died from cancer this past year, fought to have the airport closed down to jets and the toxic chemicals spewed into the air and soil. Most of my neighbors have or have had cancer. Since the UCLA Pediatrician Report and the vote by Santa Monica to close their airport to big jets, home values have soared in the area. I doubt any of the real estate agents have fulfilled their legal obligation to inform their clients of the risks. Toxins live indefinitely in the soil. I myself had a partial mastectomy almost exactly six years ago. Your life is never the same.

The house was owned by an absentee investor who had four children. They played musical chairs with the various properties they owned collectively. The dénouement of this situation became evident when the owner’s son wanted to become my roommate and park his Ferrari in the garage. An electrical box repair was delayed for months, devolving into a complaint that there were too many leaves under the flourishing ash trees. In March of 2024, I was notified by the owner’s sister that the house was being sold. The next day, I ended up in the Emergency Room at Cedars-Sinai because of a collateral infection related to my breast cancer. This did not deter the real estate agent from pursuing me relentlessly. He and his staff cited Code 1954 and the TPA (Tenant Protection Act) to double my rent and triple my deposit. They gave these instructions to the new landlord, who dutifully taped these papers onto my doorknob.
During one of the initial house showings, I was introduced to a real estate agent who lived just east of the airport. Her elementary school daughter had a very aggressive form of cancer. She was unaware that proximity to jets could have caused it.

I went to court to fight this, and the case was resolved during a Mandatory Settlement Agreement on a very windy day at the Santa Monica Courthouse: January 6th, 2025. I gained time to have another medical procedure and empty my house of all those years of family living. My daughters and I approached our council member, Traci Park, for help, but she refused. The local government was equally dismissive. Nonprofits, except for the Housing Rights Center, were not that helpful and often argumentative.

The Housing Rights Center provided a link to this landlord view of the TPA in the link below. It’s essential viewing if you think you are being illegally evicted. Watch from 29–32 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/live/yC55pIek7qI?si=wIc5tvm-w5FemhgQ