LOS ANGELES — A California homeowner claims her stripper tenant has had her family living in fear for the last six months.
The woman, who asked to be identified only as Carrie, said she has lived in her Shadow Hills home for 21 years until things took a turn for the worse between she and her tenant.
“My house has turned into a battleground,” Carrie toldKTLA.
It all started two years ago when Carrie started renting a room to 26-year-old Sara Rogers for $1500 a month. And even though Rogers filled out her application using a different last name, Carrie said her reason seemed legitimate.
“She said … ‘I’m getting divorced. I was only married for a short time, so I changed my name,’” Carrie said.
But Rogers said she was a student who worked at the strip club Deja Vu in downtown Los Angeles.
Everything was fine for the first year.
But in late 2013, Carrie said Roger’s friends moved in, she got cats, installed an air conditioner and started making a lot of noise at odd hours of the night.
“The screaming, the spanking, the moaning … that would wake the dead and my 5-year-old,” Carry said.
According to Carrie, when she tried to talk to Rogers in January about the situation she was served with a “cease and desist order for criminal stalking and harassment.”
After that, Carrie claimed a well-planned drama unfolded. She said Rogers changed the locks and put up industrial chains to keep her out.
When Carrie called police to report flooding coming from Rogers’ room, she claimed police told her she was in danger.
“Five officers came up and said to me ‘there is a loaded handgun in there … you have an unsecured door and an unsecured weapon in a house where you have a 5-year-old, you’re in trouble.’”
Then when Carrie hired an attorney, she discovered she was not the first landlord to have issues with Rogers. The attorney told Carrie that he had represented Rogers in other eviction cases, under her previous name, and that the young woman did this for a living.
Carrie’s attorney advised her to settle with Rogers for $4,000 instead of going to court.
Rodgers, who hasn’t paid rent in six months, was supposed to be out of the house by July 21, Carrie said.
When KTLA reached out to Rogers to get her side of the story, she responded with a text message stating, “It’s OK, the court settlement is enough for me. I’d prefer not to engage further with someone who doesn’t respect my privacy.”
Carrie told KTLA that the entire ordeal has cost her about $40,000.
