The second-story apartment on the edge of Van Nuys looks like the people who moved in weren't sure how long they'd be staying.

The living room has a tan corduroy sofa in front of a big-screen SONY TV with an acrylic painting on the off-white wall behind it - and not much else. There are unpacked cardboard boxes and folding wood snack tables scattered about, along with a couple of computers plus a bike. Extension cords snake around the floor.

"All the stuff's in storage because we're gun-shy," explains Gary Watts with a shrug and wave of his hand. "We think the same thing might happen here. Absolutely. I'm sure this place is on the radar.

"I mean," he goes on, "I can never feel comfortable again. It's like waiting for a burglar to come into your apartment."

The former stuntman and current industry truck driver is sitting on the sofa, while son Tyler, an eighth-grader who's wearing a pea-green T-shirt with a skateboard logo, hovers nearby on this early Tuesday afternoon. The 48-year-old father is referring to the eviction from a spacious apartment in Studio City, where he, wife Norma and their son had lived for 16 years.

The two-bedroom, two-bath apartment had an enclosed patio, plus a 10' by 10' storage unit and two parking stalls with more storage space above. They were paying $968 a month for the rent-controlled unit. Now they're paying $1,324 along with having to rent two storage units.

The increased costs add up to nearly twice what they had been spending for housing up to May 1, 2007, when they were evicted by the new owner so he could demolish their building.

'This really split up our family'
At first, the family moved into a hotel, which, at about $1,000 per week, ate into their $9,000 relocation assistance quickly.

Gary moved into a cheap single in Glendale, while Tyler and Norma rented a room from a friend of hers. "So you can say this really split up our family," notes Gary.

After five months of reading the classified sections of newspapers, driving around neighborhoods and going on apartment "cattle calls," the Watts' finally found - and landed - a vacancy in an older stucco building off Woodman in the San Fernando Valley district of Valley Glen.

So the middle-class family is back together, but at a cost.

"The amount of pressure this whole thing puts on a marriage is just incredible," Gary observes. "You can ask Tyler here. We were getting to the point where we didn't like each other. I mean, it was seriously getting ugly. And my wife and I were ready to get divorced."

Tyler nods. "I wasn't stressed out myself," he says. "But me and my dad were always arguing with each other like each time they were looking for a place. And, yeah, I could see it was getting to them."

Even after four months in their new apartment, both agree the family is not out of the woods.

"We're definitely still under stress," Gary points out. "I don't want to be here. He doesn't want to be here. My wife doesn't want to be here. We still don't sleep together because of all this.

"It's a dive, a serious downgrade." And he glances over at his son. "How many times as soon as I walk in the door, it's 'God, I hate this place'?"

Tyler points out, "It's a lot smaller," making a face. "There's no room for anything. I had to get rid of my CDs and stuff."

Right then, Norma comes home from jury duty, which is kind of a respite. Ordinarily, the 62-year-old woman works seven days a week as a cosmetologist, cutting hair.

"It's really hard," she says in a weary voice. "Especially because at work we only earn very little, and now apartments are so expensive. It's too much. I'm so worried I have high blood pressure most of the time, and I can't sleep. We're just only working for the rent."

Taking talent out of L.A.
The two-story building on Hobart Street in Koreatown was the kind of apartment where if you got locked out or needed somebody to babysit your cat, it was no problem. Everybody looked out for each other. Moreover, its 22 tenants were a nice mix of ages, races and personalities from varied backgrounds with different incomes. Some had lived there for more than two decades.

A micro-melting pot, in other words.

Plus, the 1940s structure itself - the last historically significant apartment building on the whole block - had a great L.A. location, especially for car-free, environmentally concerned Angelenos. Just a half-block off Wilshire Boulevard, it was easy walking to the Red Line and a 15-minute ride to Union Station, hub of the expanding Metro Light Rail system.

But that stately building, which had withstood Southland earthquake after earthquake over half a century, was no match for a religious institution, which bought the property in late 2006, then emptied and razed it over the next year.

Janet, a middle-aged single woman who wanted to remain anonymous, lived in a front unit of the Hobart apartment for four years. Under rent control, she paid $725 a month for a well-planned studio.

"When you don't drive, you get to know your neighborhood really well," she explains. "Your neighbors and your street become very important to you. The post office was right there. The grocery store. It was good."

Five weeks after its sale became official, however, tenants received a letter saying the building had been sold and was going to be demolished, but they would have lots of time and help in relocating. Later, a relocation consulting firm offered more assistance, encouraged older tenants to get out before the year or else they might wind up the last ones in the building.

All of these promises, according to Janet, turned out to be empty.

"Many of the tenants had four months, while qualified people - seniors and handicapped - had a year to get out," she recalls. "That's all we were given. I mean, we didn't even know it was coming or anything. You can imagine what it would be like for you having to move in four months."

On temporary disability from working with nonprofit art organizations herself, she qualified for the yearlong eviction time limit. But Janet, like a lot of the senior citizen tenants, decided to look for an apartment ASAP. She called 10 places in Koreatown about the availability of affordable housing, but was told either there was a three-to-ten-year waiting list or the building was no longer even accepting applications.

After two months of intense searching, walking up and down streets, she found a tiny, rent-controlled efficiency apartment for about the same monthly price she had been paying. But the downsizing was dramatic.

"I went from a spacious studio to a small efficiency," she reports. "I had to give away literally half of my belongings. Before I had my own private kitchen and two nice walk-in closets.

"Now I have a counter this big," she adds, holding out her arms, "with two hot plates and a little half-sized fridge. The room is about the size of a cubicle. It was a major loss."

Still, the renter considers herself lucky just to be able to stay in the neighborhood.

One of her fellow tenants moved back to the Philippines. An older woman and two men pooled their resources and moved to Las Vegas. Others wound up in Atwater, Eagle Rock, Burbank and Long Beach.

Long-term residents who managed to find places nearby faced hefty monthly rent hikes of as much as $500, which most simply couldn't afford.

"It's not just about me; you know, I care about this neighborhood," Janet says. "These moderately priced apartment buildings are just disappearing. And once they're gone, they're gone. All these developers want to build are luxury condos. What's the point of knocking down what is affordable housing to build new affordable housing? But they're not even doing that.

"It's not just that people are forced out of their neighborhood," she stresses. "They're forced out of Los Angeles. So it's taking talent and continuity out of our city."

No hot water
The room is pint-sized, meticulously arranged and cozy to the extreme.

There's just enough space for a refrigerator, covered with a menagerie of bright colored magnets; a black cabinet holding a TV and portable stereo; a round table covered by a lacy linen cloth; and a full-sized bed with an orange-and-white floral pattern spread. On top of a wood cabinet is a two-burner hot plate. A bare light bulb hangs from the ceiling, along with a paper Mache parrot and clown under a parachute.

Armando Azucar, 89, and Maria Burgos, 73, have lived in this second-story room in a six-unit craftsman-like building for 32 years. When they moved in, the rent was $65 a month. Today, because of rent control, they still pay only $251.50.

Both are from San Salvador, El Salvador, and knew each other before they immigrated. He worked on an assembly line in a furniture factory until retiring just seven years ago. She toiled in a sweatshop as a seamstress and inspector until becoming disabled in 1992.

It's been a hard but good life in Los Angeles, they agree. Years ago the couple got used to living in the confines of a room not much bigger than a home stand-up freezer. But recently a nagging concern has crept into their once stable lives.

There's a red, white and blue "For Sale" sign at 732 Columbia Ave. And all Armando and Maria have to do is go outside and look towards downtown to see the fast-approaching tide of stone-and-concrete condominiums and luxury apartments.

On this Thursday winter morning, Mario Cuellar of Coalition L.A., a grassroots group trying to organize tenants, has come to check up on the couple. The community activist has been working with the elderly couple for two years - first when a new owner tried to evict all the tenants and, more recently, when the upstairs toilet they share with seven others didn't work for four days, forcing renters to use buckets.

"I would like for the Housing Department to come and do an overall inspection because we still have problems," Armando declares in rapid-fire Spanish, his voice rising in anger. "The landlord is supposed to clean the premises, but nobody comes. And we have had no hot water in the bathroom sink for four years.

Maria shakes her head. "We don't pay the electricity, it's the landlord who pays," she reports in a more even tone. "He often complains about the electricity bill is too high, but there is a light in the hall that is on all night because the switch does not work. Yet they do not come to fix it. Also the front door lock is broken, and people can also just go around on the side and enter through a broken window. Thank God we've had no -"

"And the basement is in terrible condition," Armando interrupts, holding up his hands.

Maria nearly grimaces. "Right now there are no rats, at least on the second floor, because we have put out lots of poison and traps," she reports. "Before there were hundreds. Sometimes when I put out a glue trap, I would find six rats stuck the next morning."

Looking over at three cans of Raid by the door, Armando says there are many cockroaches in the summer, but they hide in the winter. "We have to take action ourselves, because the landlord does nothing."

When the community organizer asks if they think their landlord isn't fixing anything because this is his new strategy to get them out of the building, both nod their heads.

"Yes, I think so," says Armando. "What they want is for us to leave by our will so they will not need to compensate us [for relocation assistance]. But none of us have left. We are all hanging tough."

Mario pushes herself away from the table, folding her arms against her chest. "But we are worried, because if we have to leave there is nowhere else to go," she says. "Housing is too expensive now. So we are not leaving."