Pacific Heights is a 1990 film starring Michael Keaton, Melanie Griffith, and Matthew Modine. Conventionally described as a “psychological thriller,” or a horror film it’s really a Kafkaesque evaluation of tenancy rights and the authorized system. The film facilities on a younger couple, Drake and Patty, who buy a San Francisco Victorian with goals of fixing it up and renting a number of of the items to assist pay the mortgage. Their dream turns right into a nightmare when Carter Hayes (Michael Keaton) strikes in and exploits tenant safety legal guidelines to torment and exploit them.
Hayes strikes in with out permission and with out paying hire and he alters the locks. It doesn’t matter. When Drake (Modine) shuts off the ability and warmth, Hayes calls the police and the police clarify to Drake:
What you probably did is towards the regulation….flip the ability and warmth again on and apologize as a result of in line with the California civil code he has a proper to sue and most certainly he’ll win. If he’s in, he has rights, that’s the way it works.
A lawyer later provides “He’s taken possession so whether or not he signed a lease or paid cash or not he’s legally your tenant now and he’s protected by legal guidelines that say it’s a must to go to court docket to show that he needs to be evicted however the web impact of those legal guidelines is to…slowly drive you bankrupt and insane.”
What makes Pacific Heights a horror film is that the tenant’s rights legal guidelines depicted are very actual. Right here’s only one instance of 1000’s from NYC:
NEW: New York Metropolis house owner will get arrested after altering the locks on *her own residence* after it bought taken over by squatters.
By no means do enterprise in New York.
In NYC, anybody can merely declare “squatter’s rights” after 30 days of dwelling at a house which is not even sufficient time for the… pic.twitter.com/xkcfYM9l7u
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) March 19, 2024
As I wrote on twitter “Many years of anti-landlord laws has created a moocher-class of squatters who steal houses after which name the police on the house owners.” Furthermore, even at present such legal guidelines proceed to be added to the books. A invoice in Congress, for instance, would stop landlords from with the ability to display tenants for prison data.
All of this has been exacerbated lately by COVID legal guidelines stopping eviction (a few of which stay however which acclimatized some tenants to not paying hire and contributed to court docket backlogs), court docket backlogs and the higher ease of discovering unoccupied homes utilizing foreclosures knowledge, loss of life bulletins, Zillow and so forth. In excessive instances it can take a long time to evict a squatter who makes use of the regulation to their benefit.
Returning to Pacific Heights, what the film will get improper is the second half the place Patty (Melanie Griffith) extracts revenge towards Hayes. A much less cathartic however extra correct ending would have had the couple exhausted with the complexities of tenant regulation and the court docket system and at last giving up once they notice that the regulation will not be for them. As a substitute, they pay Carter Hayes a ransom to depart their very own dwelling. After all, Drake and Patty select by no means to hire to anybody ever once more.
