Locks, Windows, and Security: The Protections Your Landlord Must Provide

Security is habitability: working deadbolts, window locks, and functioning common-area doors are statutory requirements — and their absence after notice creates liability when something happens.

What California Law Says

Civil Code section 1941.3 requires operable deadbolts on main entry doors, operable window security devices, and locking mechanisms on common-area access doors. Failures breach habitability, support repair remedies, and feed negligence liability when foreseeable crime follows ignored notice.

How to Protect Yourself, Step by Step

1. Test every lock and window latch at move-in and photograph failures.
2. Report defects in writing immediately — security notice creates the record that matters most later.
3. Use repair-and-deduct for a dead deadbolt if the landlord stalls; safety items justify the remedy.
4. After any break-in or incident, document police reports alongside your prior notices.
5. Request rekeying at move-in and after any key compromise — prior tenants’ keys are a live risk.

Common Questions

My landlord says security upgrades are my expense. True?

The statutory devices are the landlord’s obligation — your expense begins only with upgrades beyond the legal baseline.

A break-in followed months of ignored complaints about the broken gate. Is the landlord liable?

Ignored written notice of a security defect plus a foreseeable incident is the negligence pattern California cases recognize — your complaint file is the case.