Landlords are required to install basic appliances in apartments following Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signing AB 628 into law on Oct. 28.
The law is in response to low numbers of apartments rented out with refrigerators. According to an article by the Los Angeles Times in 2022, rental listings provided by Apartments.com showed that Los Angeles and Orange County had the fewest number of apartments with refrigerators among national cities.
In Palo Alto, rental prices have jumped by 3.3% in the past year, averaging $108 per month. With these increasing prices, renters are welcoming the new policy to require appliances.
Elsa Lagerblad, a renter in Palo Alto, said that she has had issues with appliances in the past.
“One time my dishwasher caught on fire,” Lagerblad said. “The whole thing started melting and our house was filled with toxic fumes. We were able to get that replaced eventually, but the landlord did not pay for that for us.”
The California Apartment Association negotiated to remove a mandate in the originally drafted bill which required all appliances to be replaced every 10 years; the law will now only mandate appliances to be replaced if they aren’t working.
Debra Carlton, Executive Vice President, State Government Affairs for the CAA, said she believes that the bill initially went too far with added restrictions such as this one.
“In the beginning she [Tina McKinnor, the Assemblymember who sponsored the bill] had language that said, ‘an owner of rental property should provide a refrigerator and a stove that is less than 10 years old’ and we objected to that,” Carlton said. “That’s wasteful and environmental folks didn’t like it either, so she took that out.”
The policy follows increasing regulation of the rental housing market over the past few years. In 2025, California passed multiple laws, including rent reporting in regards to affordable housing and improvements in renters’ eviction rights.
Lagerblad says she believes that the policy will benefit renters.
“Overall I would say that this [the policy] is really good,” Lagerblad said. “I feel it’s good, especially for lower income families who can’t necessarily afford to replace things the way my family can.”