Blame Rent Control With regard to your June 29 story, “Apartments Feeling Their Age:” Twenty years ago, the Los Angeles City Council instituted rent control for virtually all of the existing apartments in the city. It was said that this was moderate rent control, as if one bullet to the heart, as opposed to six bullets, was “moderate.” I predicted then that it would lead to deterioration of the housing stock as it had in other parts of the country which had had rent control for years. The cost to the citizens of the city for administering these laws is large. Even more frightening is the slow and relentless deterioration that will take place. Fixing up older buildings without being able to recapture the full cost, albeit the interest on a low-cost loan, is not a reasonable solution. It is both obvious and expected that investors should receive a return on their investment money. The riskier the venture and the more difficult to manage, the higher the return must be to entice people to put up their money. Rent control has made apartment investing in Los Angeles riskier and more difficult than it would be without rent control. Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs and I have debated this issue over the years and now to have my 20-year-old hypothesis confirmed is encouraging. He and the rest of the City Council must act to correct a bad decision so we can restore the desirability of these investment properties. EDWARD R. HULAC Past President, Owner Surety Property Management Co. Van Nuys