Los Angeles ends strange rite of passage with new fridge law

When Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed a new state law in October mandating landlords supply tenants with a working stove and refrigerator starting on Jan. 1, 2026, it marked the end of a bizarre rite of passage for many moving to Los Angeles.

Unlike most of the country, or even many other cities in California, Los Angeles renters are often responsible for buying and installing their own refrigerators – and with removing them when they leave.

This has led to a robust network of used appliance shops, Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace ads, under the table swaps between incoming and outgoing renters, landlords who rent fridges by the month and Reddit queries like, “Quick question: do LA apartments not come with refrigerators?!!”

There’s a long-standing joke that many Angelenos own their refrigerators but not their own homes.

“It’s weird,” said Greg Estrada, a sales representative with the Appliance & Mattress Depot in Santa Ana, just south of Los Angeles County.

Shocked is the word Alex Buckley has used. Buckley, 24, arrived in Los Angeles from Boston in 2024 to take a job as a production assistant. Then he went on a grocery run with his sister, who was there helping him move in.

“She was holding a jug of milk,” said Buckley, “and she’s like, ‘Where’s your fridge?’ I was like, ‘Huh? Where is the fridge?’ ”

With a pile of meat warming on the floor, he jumped in the car, went to the closest Home Depot, and bought the cheapest “real” fridge he could find, Buckley said.

The one he ended up with was just 5 feet tall, yet still cost around $200, all he could afford after wiping out his savings on the move itself. After squeezing the fridge into his small SUV, he shoved it up his two flights of stairs.

“It was maybe a foot and half wide on the inside,” said Buckley, “and the freezer fit, like, two pints of ice cream. If there had been two of us in the apartment, it wouldn’t have been big enough.”

Antonio Liranzo, 34, was also quickly introduced to the appliance aisles at Home Depot after moving to a new apartment in July. Liranzo, a singer-songwriter, moved to Los Angeles from New York City four years ago, but his first rental had provided the appliance.

The real estate person who showed it to him said “And it comes with a fridge!” Liranzo said. “It didn’t register at the time.”

His second apartment also came with a fridge, but it turned out to be one left behind by the previous renter. It stopped cooling the day after he moved in, Liranzo said.

He didn’t want to take a risk on another used model, but didn’t know how to go about buying a new one. “As one does, I went to Amazon first,” said Liranzo, “Then I asked my mom.”

He ended up paying around $900 for a 16.6 cubic-foot model after delivery and installation.

“In California they are considered a luxury, not a necessity,” said Liranzo, who took to his social media accounts to complain just a few months before the law passed.

Larry Gross, the executive director for the Coalition for Economic Survival, a tenants rights organization, said Liranzo was among the fortunate. Gross said research showed that in Los Angeles rent is already at 50% of income for many people, and some renters go without fridges at all. Others buy very old or malfunctioning models, he said, which can cost renters even more in the long run if it means spending more money on takeout, replacing spoiled food or the extra electricity used by an inefficient older machine.

Even good-quality, affordable used models are several hundred dollars. Marsha Stonecipher, whose family has run Savon Appliance in nearby Burbank for 45 years, said the shop specialized in refurbished models of all vintages. She has sold a lot of basic top-freezer refrigerators for around $350.

When Violet Hopkins moved to the Los Angeles neighborhood of Glendale from New York City 25 years ago, she was lucky enough to find a spacious beige fridge for free, from a woman her brother knew.

Even so, it came at a cost.

The woman kept Hopkins, 52, for an hour and a half before releasing the refrigerator. She showed off her art collection, asked about Hopkins’ religious beliefs, cooed to an ancient pet rabbit, and even took a shower after the rabbit urinated in her lap.

It was worth it, Hopkins said. “I had that fridge for a very long time.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.