My Eviction Attorney - Niv Davidovich

Summary

Tosh Show – "My Eviction Attorney – Niv Davidovich" (January 27, 2026)

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode features Daniel Tosh in conversation with Niv Davidovich, an eviction attorney based in Los Angeles. The episode explores the strange, often absurd world of eviction law in LA, sharing hilarious and sometimes shocking stories from Niv’s career. Tosh and Niv dive into the realities of landlord-tenant disputes, the effects of rent control, wacky tenant and landlord stories, and dispense practical (and impractical) advice on surviving the LA housing game—all with their signature dry humor and irreverence.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Daniel’s Travels, Celebrity Sightings, and Malibu Musings

• Daniel recaps his Pacific Northwest tour and laments his in-laws’ obsession with their phones, joking about putting them “in a home with unlimited data” [03:20].
• Celebrity run-ins in Montecito: Conan O’Brien (lunch), Carol Burnett (dinner), and Drew from Property Brothers [04:56].
• Daniel notes former Vice President Kamala Harris recently became a Malibu neighbor, joking about inviting her to play pickleball or mahjong [06:09].

2. Meet Niv: From Israel to LA’s Wild Legal Scene

• Niv’s name origins: Daniel riffs on "NIV" being short for "New International Version" (the Bible) and suggests "Notorious Niv" as a nickname [10:33].
  • Tosh: “If you’re gonna make me pick a version, I’m going Niv always.” [11:17]
• Niv’s background: Born in Israel to Russian-Jewish parents, moved to LA at 4 [11:55].
  • Attended Buckley School with celebrity kids (recalls playing ping pong in PE with Tatyana Ali and doing musicals with Rashida Jones) [12:12].
• Discusses heavy parental pressure to be an engineer, lawyer, doctor, or accountant; he managed to hit three out of four [13:14].

3. The (Circuitous) Road to Eviction Law

• Engineering was “atrociously difficult,” contributes to later law school feeling manageable by comparison [13:51].
  • “Once you’ve gone through the seventh circle of hell, going to the first or second is like, this is a vacation.” – Niv [16:02]
• Initially aimed for entertainment law (brief songwriting/producing career, including a gold record in Japan) before stumbling into eviction law by demand after going solo [17:10].
  • Niv: "For a long time, I was actually a songwriter and music producer… I had a few cuts in Japan and one in Germany, one in England, some in TV shows and movies." [18:00]

4. Eviction Law 101: What Does an Eviction Attorney Actually Do?

• Outlines basic tenant obligations: pay rent, follow lease, don’t be a nuisance, don’t commit crimes [18:31].
• LA’s twist: tenants using apartments for “God knows what”—including adult film production and more [19:06].
  • Notable story: Tenants filmed porn in a penthouse and later in the building’s common stairwell after being told to stop, finally resulting in eviction [20:20].
• Daniel: “You were born in Israel, moved to Los Angeles at the age of four. What prompted that move?” Niv: “Mostly my mom putting me on the airplane.” [11:52]

5. Craziest Tenant & Landlord Stories

• Arsonist tenant who set fire to his apartment and tried to firebomb the federal courthouse with unlit Molotov cocktails [21:36].
  • “Because he’s not a very good terrorist, he forgot to light the Molotov cocktails.” – Niv [21:36]
• Katana blade-wielding tenant chased maintenance staff, requiring a SWAT raid [22:02].
• Tenant so extreme a hoarder, rats climbed the windows; another filmed in mailroom for sex, meth, and stealing mail (all in different days) [22:23].
• Tenant with 10 automatic weapons threatening neighbors [23:10].

6. LA Eviction Realities: Why It's So Hard

• Compared to most U.S. regions, evictions in LA, NY, and D.C. are unusually complex due to legal structures and strong tenant protections [24:26].
• “The average eviction takes about six months to conclude, man.” - Niv [27:51]
• Free legal defense offered by 16+ nonprofit agencies means most cases drag out—“they’re essentially political activists… like my terrorists.” [25:53]
• Jury trials are stacked against landlords (“statistically… 10 to 12 tenants… majority hate their landlord”) [26:35]—victories often rely on tenants “making themselves unlikable” in court.

7. ChatGPT & The New Age of ‘Pro per’ Tenants

• Increasingly, tenants acting as their own lawyer, using AI like ChatGPT, causes problems (“ChatGPT is the worst lawyer on the face of the planet… just makes stuff up left and right.”) [28:29]
  • Niv details incidents where ChatGPT fabricated legal codes or case law, confusing the process and causing judges to “bend over backwards” for self-represented tenants [29:26].

8. The Airbnb/Short-Term Rental Squatting Problem

• Daniel puzzled by stories of Airbnb scammers turning short-term rentals into long-term squats, with police powerless to help [30:17].
• Niv: law requires civil eviction, not law enforcement solutions, even if it’s only been one week. Recalls personal instance of needing to physically push through a trespassing former tenant (after due process) to reclaim a unit [31:47].
• “Once you get in… the police will always tell you it’s a civil matter. Go to court.” [30:32]

9. The LA County Oddity: Why LA Is So Different

• Only in LA County (as opposed to nearby counties like Ventura or Riverside) do these endlessly repeated “psycho tenant” stories occur [34:07].
• Niv: “95% of tenants are… lovely people. The other 5%… I only deal with the psychos.” [34:26]

10. Landlords, Investment, and Rent Control

• Niv strongly advises against residential investment in LA “unless you want to play in the NFL during playoffs. You have to be a professional at it” [36:01].
• Daniel feels conflicted about his own good tenant of 14 years who underpays but is zero hassle [37:01].
• Higher-end tenants = fewer headaches, but also more risk (longer vacancies between tenants) [37:25].

Rent Control Hot Takes

• Niv: “Very, very, very bad… every economic study… found that rent control is the best way to make rents higher.” [38:15]
• Around 15–20 of LA County’s 88 cities have some sort of rent or eviction control [39:03].
• “The People's Republic of Santa Monica does [have tight controls].” – Niv [39:05]
• Pre-pandemic, landlords could buy tenants out for $12–$15,000, but now tenants demand much more, making the old “buy out → renovate → raise rent” model near impossible [40:31].

11. Fixing LA’s Housing Crisis: Niv’s Two-Step Plan

• Abolish rent control.
• Allow much denser construction: “Build however tall you want… without all the restrictions we have now.” [40:39]
• Details the absurdity of endless LA zoning/permitting complications and how “interfering with the economy and interfering with the housing market is what causes disruption in the housing supply.” [47:30]

12. Price Gouging, Fires, & Emergency Declarations

• Talks about “price gouging statutes” triggered by emergency declarations, and how these restrict “market rent”—sometimes forcing high-end units (e.g., $15,000/month) to rent for $5,600 if not previously leased in the prior year [46:14].
• Notes LA County has, for years, maintained sequential states of emergency to allow more governmental flexibility, impacting housing policy [45:15].

13. Work Stress, Home Life & Parenting

• Daniel asks about stress and danger in Niv’s job—stressful, yes; dangerous, not really [47:58].
• Niv says his wife, who works with him, helps mitigate the stress, as does being a person of faith [48:05].
• Niv’s five kids—Daniel jokes it’s the first time he’s heard someone refer to “just five” children [48:40].
• Playful exchange about sibling rivalry, household chaos, and the possibility of ever evicting his own kids [49:31].

14. Humor, Gifts, and Callback Gags

• Daniel gifts Niv his old Mulberry attache, “the first nice thing” his wife bought him, and a soft-top beginner surfboard for his kids [50:22].
• “We need Jewish kids surfing. That’s my thing.” – Daniel [50:34]
• Quips about never being able to evict someone living “rent-free” in your head [51:04].

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “If you’re gonna make me pick a version, I’m going Niv always.” – Daniel Tosh [11:17]
• “Once you’ve gone through the seventh circle of hell, going to the first or second is like this is a vacation.” – Niv Davidovich [16:02]
• Tosh, on LA’s eviction process: “That’s a half year of free rent, guys, is all I’m hearing.” [27:55]
• “ChatGPT is the worst lawyer on the face of the planet. ChatGPT just makes stuff up left and right.” – Niv [28:29]
• “95% of tenants are absolutely lovely people… the other 5% are psychos, and I only deal with the psychos.” – Niv [34:26]
• “Being a landlord in LA is like playing in the NFL during playoffs. You have to be a professional at it.” – Niv [36:01]
• “Rent control is the best way to make rents higher. It temporarily controls rent for that particular person, but overall it causes rent to increase.” – Niv [38:15]
• “She stood in front of the doorway and I pushed right through her… just went with my shoulder.” – Niv, on forcibly evicting a trespasser for a client [33:38]
• Daniel, gifting a surfboard: “We need Jewish kids surfing. That’s my thing.” [50:34]
• “Even I can’t evict those people [living rent-free in your head].” – Niv [51:12]

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Important Timestamps

• 03:20 – Daniel’s gripes about screen-addicted in-laws during Whistler trip
• 04:56 – Celebrity sightings recap
• 10:11 – Introduction of Niv Davidovich, eviction attorney
• 11:17 – Name riff: “Notorious Niv” and “NIV version” jokes
• 13:14 – Russian-Jewish parental expectations
• 16:02 – Surviving engineering to make law school feel “like a vacation”
• 17:10 – Niv’s brief songwriting/producing career in Japan
• 18:31 – What is an eviction attorney? LA’s wildest cases begin
• 19:06 – Crazy tenant stories start (porn productions, hoarding, weapons, etc.)
• 24:26 – Why LA is unique for evictions: “not impossible, but very hard”
• 27:51 – “The average eviction takes about six months”
• 28:29 – Pitfalls of tenants using ChatGPT as a lawyer
• 30:17 – The Airbnb squatter crisis explained
• 33:01 – The physical eviction story
• 34:07 – Why LA County is “a magnet” for outrageous cases
• 36:01 – Investment risk: “like playing in the NFL...”
• 38:15 – Niv on rent control making rents higher
• 40:39 – Niv’s ideas for rapid housing reform
• 47:30 – How government interference makes housing worse
• 51:03 – Parting gifts & final jokes
• 51:12 – “Even I can’t evict those people (from your head).”
• 54:01 – Daniel’s real-life story of evicting exes (playful closing banter)

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Tone & Language

• Daniel Tosh’s humor is on full display—sarcastic, playful, often pushing the envelope with dark or caustic asides.
• Niv matches with understated wit, self-deprecation, and matter-of-fact delivery of outrageous legal tales.
• The episode is brisk, comedic, and layered with insider-y references and LA/Cali-specific nods.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

Expect a rapid-fire, funny, and illuminating look into LA's housing (and eviction) circus, peppered with wild case stories, legal tidbits, and Daniel Tosh’s inimitable banter. The episode gives an honest look at the absurdity of eviction law in Los Angeles, highlighting both the human drama and the structural madness—making you laugh while you thank your lucky stars you’re not on either end of an LA County eviction.

Transcript

[Niv Davidovich]

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[Daniel Tosh]

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[Niv Davidovich]

What's up, Daniel?

[Daniel Tosh]

I'll tell you what's up. Just got back from leg one of the tour. Oh yeah, my first farewell tour. 2026 brought the in laws with us. Pacific Northwest. Rainy, beautiful, snowy. Oh, here's my gripe, okay, I bring my in laws, I want to show them the world. Yet all day long they're just on their phone. Yeah, the father in law playing solitaire, mother in law, some version of a slot machine candy crush hybrid. And if you told me that their screen time was seven or eight hours a day on their phone, I would be like, well, that seems low. It's just, I don't get it. And you, I take photos of them on their phone now just so I can document it. It's like here you're in the most beautiful city in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. You know, we're in this magnificent suite in the Four Seasons and they're just both head down in the phone, just all day, couple screenagers and they just can't wait to chime in with whatever latest, you know, tidbit they've learned. Did you pick that up on buzzfeed? I think they who would have guessed that this, these baby boomers would be the ones that are on their phone, addicted to their phones way more than the alphas, the Gen Z. The problem is the boomers on the phones. Oh, it's maddening to watch. I'm just like, why do I take you anywhere? I'm telling my wife, I think we should just get. Put them in a home. Put them in a home with unlimited data, you know, nice high speed Internet. And they're fine, just always on their phone. They fall asleep sitting up just like looking at their phones. It's just depressing. That's not how you want to live. And if somebody points it out to you, you should probably say, oh, I am doing that. Oh, it does say, my screen time is a disgusting amount. Maybe I, maybe I'm addicted. I should get help. I don't know. By the way, Whistler, that was my first time there. Just beautiful. What a. What a wonderful place. Now you say, well, why don't you make that your home away from home and not Tahoe? Well, it's too far. You have to clear customs. And then it's. It's a long drive from the nearest airport or you jump on a puddle jumper. It's not my. No, that's not going to work. But it is beautiful, the mountains. My, My son and I, my wife, we rode, we rode Blackcomb. Had a great day. Yeah, I liked it. They got, they got a good thing up there. They know what they're doing. A lot of foreigners vacationing there. I'm self conscious being American now. People look at you. People know you. Thankfully, I'm a California elitist, so they still rolled the red carpet out for me. Then as soon as I got back, my wife's birthday, up we go. Heading up the coast to where my brother lives up in Montecito and just kept seeing celebrities.

[Niv Davidovich]

Who'd you see?

[Daniel Tosh]

I'll tell you who we saw. Conan o' Brien eating lunch.

[Niv Davidovich]

Okay, okay.

[Daniel Tosh]

Carol Burnett eating dinner.

[Niv Davidovich]

What?

[Daniel Tosh]

And then the big one, the big celebrity sighting. Drew from Property Brothers. Yeah, those are the big three.

[Niv Davidovich]

That's your second.

[Daniel Tosh]

Carol Brothers. I've seen Carol twice now. Here's. I mean, the thing is, I eat at the same time. Carol eats. Yeah, we're five o' clock diners.

[Niv Davidovich]

This is perfect.

[Daniel Tosh]

Then we watch some football. You know, the way my wife likes to celebrate her birthday.

[Niv Davidovich]

It's perfect. Perfect for her.

[Daniel Tosh]

It's her day. No, I don't get to watch it when it's on. I have to wait till she falls asleep at night and then I get to. Then I get to watch and catch up.

[Niv Davidovich]

That is your move.

[Daniel Tosh]

But it's gotten so good with slinging your phone to the hotel TV that you know it's perfect. And I don't. I'm not glued to my phone all day like my in laws, so I can easily go dark and I don't know who's winning. Speaking of celebrities, you know, we got another Malibu neighbor who's coming. Oh. Former vice president Kamala Harris moved to Malibu.

[Niv Davidovich]

This is great.

[Daniel Tosh]

That's great. Welcome. I don't know if she knows how many backwoods Trumpers live around here. Oh, it's disgusting. No, it's. That's great. I hope to see her out and about and I'm going to invite her, her and her husband to play pickleball with me.

[Niv Davidovich]

Nice of you.

[Daniel Tosh]

I'd like to have her on the show, but I as just a fun neighbor. But I also want to invite her to play pickleball or some mahjong with me. I don't know that she knows how to play. I'm not very good.

[Niv Davidovich]

You learn together.

[Daniel Tosh]

So Kamal's in the neighborhood. That's great that she can afford to live in Malibu. You know, somebody that just gave her her life working for the people.

[Niv Davidovich]

Public servant.

[Daniel Tosh]

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[Daniel Tosh]

Pa show if your landlord hires today's guest, chances are you're getting the boot. Please welcome the only eviction attorney I've ever sat across from in a studio where I have four squatters that work with me. Niv Niv Davidovich. You son of a. Vidovich. Niv. Can I call you Niv?

[Niv Davidovich]

That is my name. So that's is really, is it? It really is.

[Daniel Tosh]

What is NIV short for?

[Niv Davidovich]

Nothing.

[Daniel Tosh]

NIV. NIVaniel Nivanthony.

[Niv Davidovich]

My friends have come up with Nivanathan. No.

[Daniel Tosh]

Nivolodian.

[Niv Davidovich]

No. These are all new though. Niv.

[Daniel Tosh]

Niv. Oh, by the way, as a Are you Jewish?

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

What gave it away?

[Daniel Tosh]

I don't know. I thought maybe you were appropriating. Do you have any good Christian friends?

[Niv Davidovich]

Not a whole heck of a lot.

[Daniel Tosh]

I wonder if you did, if they would call you the Niv version.

[Niv Davidovich]

Ah, see, I actually get that.

[Daniel Tosh]

You do get that.

[Niv Davidovich]

I am the new international version.

[Daniel Tosh]

There you go. I love the. I tell you what, The Niv. If you're gonna make me pick a version, I'm going Niv always.

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah. Sometimes I tried to make them call me the Notorious Niv. It did not work.

[Daniel Tosh]

I don't. I'm going to. I'm going to be honest with you, Niv. I love it.

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah, that's great.

[Daniel Tosh]

The Notorious Niv is a really good nickname.

[Niv Davidovich]

That's good.

[Daniel Tosh]

All right. Do you believe in ghost?

[Niv Davidovich]

Ghosts? Yes. Depends on your definition of ghosts, but sort of.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay. What about squatters? You believe in squatters?

[Niv Davidovich]

I believe we should be getting rid of all the squatters, but yes, I believe in them. They're unfortunately very real.

[Daniel Tosh]

You were born in Israel, moved to Los Angeles at the age of four. What prompted that move?

[Niv Davidovich]

Mostly my mom putting me on the airplane.

[Daniel Tosh]

It would have been hilarious if you said you were evicted.

[Niv Davidovich]

That would have been really funny.

[Daniel Tosh]

Uh huh. You were born in Israel to Russian parents?

[Niv Davidovich]

Yes.

[Daniel Tosh]

Did you grow up with money?

[Niv Davidovich]

Depends on what you mean by money.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay, well, you were in the same high school as a ton of rich famous people?

[Niv Davidovich]

Yes, I went to Buckley. That's where a lot of celebrities sent their kids. It's like, well, where the celebrity kids went, so. You remember Fresh Prince of Bel Air?

[Sponsor Voice]

Yeah, I remember.

[Niv Davidovich]

Remember the younger girl, the youngest sister? You know, you'd be like, going to PE and playing ping pong with her.

[Daniel Tosh]

You guys got to play ping pong and pe that right there blows my mind. We didn't get pe we got Wall ball. That's it.

[Niv Davidovich]

I have pictures of me in the. In the musical with Rasheeda Jones.

[Daniel Tosh]

Uh huh. What musical did you guys do?

[Niv Davidovich]

We did a bunch, but the one that I was in with her was the King and I.

[Daniel Tosh]

Were you friends with any of these famous kids? Were they nice or were they all awful people?

[Niv Davidovich]

No, they were actually. I mean, I wasn't friends with like, Paris Hilton or. What's the other one? The other one that was on the show with her?

[Daniel Tosh]

Nicole Richie.

[Niv Davidovich]

Nicole Richie? Yeah. Nicole Richie. I wasn't like friends.

[Daniel Tosh]

She seemed a little sweeter, a little more down to earth. You said you grew up in a very traditional household, but your parents were both engineers, which makes it sound like you had two dads.

[Niv Davidovich]

No, in. In Russia, pretty much. There's only like four jobs that Jewish parents will let you be.

[Daniel Tosh]

Doctor.

[Niv Davidovich]

That's one.

[Daniel Tosh]

Lawyer.

[Niv Davidovich]

That's more here, but yes.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay. Engineer.

[Niv Davidovich]

And accountant.

[Daniel Tosh]

Accountant, that's right.

[Niv Davidovich]

If you're not one of those four things, you're pretty much a loser.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, that's a lot of pressure on a kid.

[Niv Davidovich]

It is. I've. I've managed to hit three out of four.

[Daniel Tosh]

What were the ones that you.

[Niv Davidovich]

Well, I'm a lawyer. I have an engineering degree.

[Daniel Tosh]

You actually finished your engineering degree? I thought you quit.

[Niv Davidovich]

No, no, no, I finished Summa Cumberley as I like to call it.

[Daniel Tosh]

But yes, that's good. You went to usc.

[Niv Davidovich]

I did.

[Daniel Tosh]

But you realized that engineering, that wasn't going to be your path.

[Niv Davidovich]

No, it was like probably one of the most traumatic experiences of my life.

[Daniel Tosh]

Why?

[Niv Davidovich]

Because it's the hardest major on the entire campus and if you're not good at it, it's really difficult.

[Daniel Tosh]

And was it apparent immediately that you weren't good at it?

[Niv Davidovich]

Pretty, apparently.

[Daniel Tosh]

Did you enjoy it though? Is that like. Or was it just pure parent guilt that forced you down that road?

[Niv Davidovich]

A lot of parent guilt. And my dad was an engineer and he said, look, I'll give you our business if you become an engineer. And I was like, well, that sounds like a fun shortcut.

[Daniel Tosh]

Do you have any siblings?

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah, I have one sister.

[Daniel Tosh]

Uh huh. And what does she do?

[Niv Davidovich]

She's a lawyer.

[Daniel Tosh]

I mean, listen, you guys knocked it out of the park though. Good for you. And the fact that you could pivot and still finish, I mean, just. But it was hard.

[Niv Davidovich]

It was atrociously difficult and everyone else of course, was really good at it. Like there were classes towards like the junior year where it was me and like 25 Asian people and 25 Indian people, one token black guy, one token white girl and the Jew walk into a bar. Yeah. None of these people had ever seen the inside of a bar. But. And then, and then the teacher several times pretty much had the oral skills of someone who had just gotten off an airplane from wherever they were from that morning.

[Caller]

Uh huh.

[Daniel Tosh]

But they were so smart.

[Niv Davidovich]

Oh, they were like ridiculously smart. And they were all having a good time and I was just sitting there completely baffled.

[Daniel Tosh]

I do it with my children. I carry the anxiety of school that they're going through and stuff that they're going to go through. I can, it gets me worked up already. I'm just like, oh.

[Niv Davidovich]

And my parents were all like, did really well in school and you know, they kind of expected me to do really well in school. And.

[Daniel Tosh]

Did you do well or. You said you barely got.

[Niv Davidovich]

Did you cheat? Yeah.

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, I mean, listen, it's a part of college almost on ed. Some people aren't as honest as other people. Pivoting to law school, was that enjoyable or was that like a wake up call? You're like, oh, this is so much more up my alley.

[Niv Davidovich]

That's pretty much what it was. I didn't. I didn't get straight A's, but I got pretty good grades.

[Daniel Tosh]

But it's a ton of work.

[Niv Davidovich]

Not compared to engineering, but it is.

[Daniel Tosh]

A lot of reading. Oh, it's just so much reading.

[Niv Davidovich]

It is a lot of reading. But then eventually you kind of figure out how to read the important parts quickly. Once you've gone through the seventh circle of hell, going to the first or second is like, this is a vacation.

[Daniel Tosh]

It's an upgrade.

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, that's a good way to look at the afterlife. You know, if I can start at the bottom tier of hell and work my way up a few. Well, anyway, did you pass the bar exam your first time?

[Niv Davidovich]

I did.

[Daniel Tosh]

Good for you. You got into eviction law. This couldn't be something that you were passionate about as a kid?

[Niv Davidovich]

No.

[Daniel Tosh]

How did you even stumble into it?

[Niv Davidovich]

I started doing a little bit of it when I was first with the sole practitioner that I worked with out of law school, and then I had to do a little bit of it at, like, two firms later. And when I went out on my own, a lot of the people that I was trying to get business from who were in the real estate business, they were people who needed to have evictions done. So I started back up and doing evictions. And then it just kind of snowballed from there. Didn't really know about it. When I was younger, I actually wanted.

[Daniel Tosh]

To do entertainment long, and it couldn't be more boring.

[Niv Davidovich]

It is super boring. It sucks.

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, certainly in the music side. Is that what you were focusing on or no?

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah. For a long time, I was actually a songwriter and music producer.

[Daniel Tosh]

I don't want to bury the lead here, but NIV does have a gold record in Japan. True or false?

[Niv Davidovich]

True.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay, explain how this is how this happened.

[Niv Davidovich]

So I was a songwriter and I was signed to a publishing company. And that publishing company had a lot of contacts in Japan. And so back in the day, before K Pop was like its own thing and J Pop was its own thing, American songwriters would write songs in English, produce them completely, and then sell them to a Japanese artist. And the Japanese songwriters would then, quote, translate your song. And what they mean by translate is write completely brand new Japanese lyrics that have nothing to do with yours. But they will take your production and record it with Japanese voices and lyrics.

[Daniel Tosh]

And was this a one off or was this like you just did this constantly?

[Niv Davidovich]

I had a few cuts in Japan and one in Germany. We had one in England and I had a bunch of songs on TV shows and movies and stuff like that.

[Daniel Tosh]

I mean, that's great.

[Niv Davidovich]

Then it all just kind of fizzled out.

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, even if it fizzled out, it's like, what a cool feather in the cap. To this day, you can't walk down the streets of Japan without being mobbed. True or false?

[Niv Davidovich]

Probably true, but I don't know if it's because of the music.

[Daniel Tosh]

Without boring me to death. Explain. As someone who's never been evicted or had to file for an eviction, what exactly your job involves the eviction?

[Niv Davidovich]

Part of it is very simple. There are people who rent apartments or commercial units, office spaces, warehouses, nursing homes. And as a tenant, you're required to do a certain amount of things. Number one, pay the rent. Pay the rent on time. Pay the rent in full. It's the number on the lease. It's really easy.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

Okay.

[Daniel Tosh]

It seems simple.

[Niv Davidovich]

It does. Explain to. Yeah. Two, don't break any of the rules of the lease.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

Three, don't be a nuisance to anybody else. Or don't use your facility that you're renting to do any illegal stuff.

[Daniel Tosh]

Gotcha. This is where L. A becomes exciting. People are using their rented space for God knows what.

[Niv Davidovich]

Oh yes. Yeah. Sometimes I think God wished he didn't know what. Uh huh.

[Daniel Tosh]

We don't have to pussyfoot around it. You're pun intended. You're talking about pornography.

[Niv Davidovich]

I have one. I have one of those.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay. Human trafficking that we don't have. Okay. That would be a big coup.

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah, yeah. But the porn, you have a title?

[Daniel Tosh]

Porn.

[Niv Davidovich]

So let's see.

[Daniel Tosh]

Look at Niv pulling out his phone.

[Niv Davidovich]

So there was this one time.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, that list is long.

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah. We got an email from the client. We've still never really discovered how the client's employee discovered the pornography. Because he saw it on Twitter.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, just. Yeah, just popped up now. Twitter, you know it really, Once Elon Musk took it over, it just really turned a smut.

[Niv Davidovich]

Well, it was already pretty smutty back.

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, I guess. But now I feel like it's just disgusting. Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

So these people were.

[Daniel Tosh]

They saw it somehow.

[Niv Davidovich]

They were. Well, this wasn't the first time. So the first time that these people got complained about was because they were filming their pornography on their outdoor patio.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

Like up on their penthouse.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, the penthouse.

[Niv Davidovich]

And the building next door where children live and families live.

[Daniel Tosh]

You don't have to make it so obvious that it's bad.

[Niv Davidovich]

Well, that's. I mean, I heard the voicemails. That's what the people were complaining about. So we told them, can you please stop having sex on camera in front of the whole city? And they said, sure, we'll stop.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

So then they transitioned to a much better place, which is the common stairwell of the building.

[Daniel Tosh]

What a scene.

[Niv Davidovich]

So we told them, yeah, you got to go.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

And so we got them out.

[Daniel Tosh]

Give me some of your crazier tenants. Let's go. Let me see some of these crazy tenants. I'd like to list a few crazy landlords.

[Niv Davidovich]

So just recently, we had a guy who was driving all the other tenants in the building crazy, harassing them, yelling at them. We made a deal. We made a deal for him to leave. And in the deal, because he was trying to get government aid to go to the next place he could apply for an extension to his stay, and we could oppose it if it was not reasonable for him to stay. So the day after we signed the deal, he kept doing all the same crazy stuff he was doing. And so his lawyer still asked for an extension. About a week before the hearing on the extension, this fella decided it might be a good idea to light his own apartment on fire. And then he tried to firebomb the federal courthouse.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, well, they went too far.

[Niv Davidovich]

But, yeah, this is the best part. He did that by throwing Molotov cocktails at the federal courthouse. But because he's not a very good terrorist, he forgot to like the Molotov cocktails.

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, then I feel like that if I were his lawyer. Yeah, I feel like there's. There's some intent that you really have to prove.

[Niv Davidovich]

No, he's just an idiot.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay. Did he. It would explode when he threw it or something.

[Niv Davidovich]

He's just a crazy person.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

We had the guy with the katana blade who was chasing all the maintenance people with the katana blade, and so SWAT had to come and take him out. I saw the video. It was, like, 10 SWAT guys going up the stairs.

[Daniel Tosh]

You tell me one SWAT guy couldn't handle a katana blade?

[Niv Davidovich]

I don't know.

[Daniel Tosh]

That's probably. It's probably safer in numbers.

[Niv Davidovich]

Could have been a master of the katana. There was the guy with the machete who came out of his apartment, saw his neighbor, and started hacking on his arm.

[Daniel Tosh]

Trejo.

[Niv Davidovich]

Trejo.

[Daniel Tosh]

Danny Trejo.

[Niv Davidovich]

We had one Guy, he was such a bad hoarder that all the trash in his apartment was up to like the knees.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah, I bet you deal with that a lot.

[Niv Davidovich]

We have a lot of hoarders. And so it was so disgusting that the rats were climbing on the windows of his house. Like we have video of the rats on the windows.

[Daniel Tosh]

I don't like any of that. That's gross. I don't like when people live like that.

[Niv Davidovich]

No. Oh, this was a good one. So this was either Riverside or San Bernardino. There was one couple that was living in an apartment and there was, you know, like, they have your little vestibule where the mailboxes are. So we had them on camera. One day they were having sex, then the next day they were smoking meth. And then the next day they were stealing the mail.

[Daniel Tosh]

Uh huh.

[Niv Davidovich]

And so we had to victim for all three things. Ah, but this was like one day, like.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah, but you filled them on a bad three days. What if you had filled them on a Sunday when they were going to mass worship?

[Niv Davidovich]

We had a guy with 10 automatic weapons who was threatening to kill everyone in the building and the people at his like weird technical school.

[Daniel Tosh]

You ever shot a gun?

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah, of course.

[Daniel Tosh]

Are you a big gun guy?

[Niv Davidovich]

I wouldn't call myself a big gun guy, but I have some guns.

[Daniel Tosh]

You got guns, plural? I've never shot a gun.

[Niv Davidovich]

Really?

[Daniel Tosh]

No.

[Niv Davidovich]

Really fun.

[Daniel Tosh]

I'm sure there's a lot of things that are fun that I've never done.

[Niv Davidovich]

Me too.

[Daniel Tosh]

But I'm okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

But this one's legal?

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, yeah, yeah. I think if I'm gonna shoot a gun, it's gonna be one time and one bullet.

[Niv Davidovich]

And that's a wrap for Teddy's house. That's dark.

[Daniel Tosh]

I mean, if I'm being honest, John Cue likes it. I feel like that might be the only time I ever am interested.

[Niv Davidovich]

That is very dark.

[Daniel Tosh]

Sorry about that. And that's it? You just evict him? Like.

[Niv Davidovich]

Oh, it's far more complicated than that.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay, we'll get into that. But first, this profession doesn't exist in 99% of the places in our country. No, because that isn't true. Okay. Because I always thought it was very easy to evict people in other places in the country. But like here in LA and New York, it's impossible.

[Niv Davidovich]

LA, New York, Washington, D.C. it's difficult, but it's not impossible. A lot of people think it's impossible. It's not impossible.

[Daniel Tosh]

What about the White House? You think you get that guy out.

[Niv Davidovich]

He kind of tore up part of it. Do we really want to talk about politics?

[Daniel Tosh]

He's just done a real number on that White House. I feel like he should have signed some lease that says he can't destroy a wing, take away part of it. You can't just destroy a wing.

[Niv Davidovich]

But if there's someone who's destroying it and then rebuilding it, best him.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, why best him?

[Niv Davidovich]

Because he knows how to build stuff.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, does he?

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah.

[Daniel Tosh]

All right, now, what's your win record? Do you even know what that is?

[Niv Davidovich]

No. And it also depends on your definition of win. I have a very.

[Daniel Tosh]

Do lawyers still care about that type of stuff?

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah, kind of. They ask me, like, how many jury trials have you won? And like, in the office, I would say probably win about 75% of the jury trials.

[Daniel Tosh]

What's it cost if somebody's calling like, hey, I got a nuisance?

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah, we get this question all the time. Okay, so the problem is that in LA, they've completely messed up the system. There are 16 different agencies, nonprofit agencies, who will provide a free legal defense to any tenant as long as they're not rich. And these are people who will take very, very low paying jobs and do this work because they really believe in it. They're essentially political activists. Sometimes they're people who are just trying to get jury trial experience. Most of the time they're true believers. I. They're like my terrorists.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

And they think that if you're a landlord, you are an evil person for charging people money because that should be a human right. And of course that does not work in our society.

[Daniel Tosh]

I mean, that's the other extreme version. Maybe it's not such a hard line one way or the other, but. Okay, point taken.

[Niv Davidovich]

No one ever left the USSR or Cuba or Venezuela and said, you know, the government was really shitty, but the apartments were awesome. Dude, nobody's ever said that.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay, well, let's get back to it.

[Niv Davidovich]

So, yeah, so these agencies, once a tenant goes to them, they, they really have no incentive to not drag the process out. In fact, dragging the process out is exactly what they want to do.

[Daniel Tosh]

Right. And so it's just more free rent or whatever the situation is.

[Niv Davidovich]

Exactly. And, and at the end of that process, usually we'll make a deal with them where there's some sort of a waiver of rent and we give them a little bit more time to leave because it's simply more expedient than going through the jury trial. And when, when you go to a jury trial, the reality is that statistically speaking, you're not going to get a jury with 12 landlords on it. You're going to get probably 10 to 12 tenants. And of those 10 to 12 tenants, probably a vast majority of them hate their landlord. And they're going to see my client and see their own landlord sitting there. And so you're walking in handicapped already just before you even open your mouth. Now, it doesn't make it impossible. And a lot of the time the tenants kind of do our job for them, for us, by making themselves unlikable. But sometimes they are. Sometimes they are likable, and it makes it very difficult because people will feel for them, whatever their situation is. Sometimes I feel for them is the reality. But the situation is that if. If they're falling on hard times and they can't pay the rent, it's not the landlord's job to take care of that person. There should be. You want to do government programs, great, fantastic. But the landlord didn't sign up to be that person's caretaker.

[Daniel Tosh]

So how long do you get in this city if you just stop paying the rent before you can actually get them out?

[Niv Davidovich]

The average eviction takes about six months to conclude, man. Average.

[Daniel Tosh]

That's a half year of free rent, guys, is all I'm hearing.

[Niv Davidovich]

The poor people I got out in six days.

[Daniel Tosh]

They were in the penthouse. They obviously, money wasn't their issue.

[Niv Davidovich]

They were, I guess, yeah, they found some other place where people didn't mind that so much. But, yeah, it all depends on what the story is. I've had situations that take a lot longer than six months. I have a lot of what we call propers. Propers mean people who represent themselves. ChatGPT has made that so much more difficult because every tenant in the entire city now thinks that they are Johnny Cochran.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh.

[Niv Davidovich]

Because they just go to ChatGPT and ChatGPT is the worst lawyer on the face of the planet. ChatGPT just makes stuff up left and right.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

One time someone called me and said, oh, you know, does the landlord have to give me this disclosure? It was a commercial lease. Do they have to. They have to give me this disclosure about something that's on the roof. I said, no, they don't. So 10 minutes later sends me Santa Monica Title 16, and it says the landlord has to make the disclosure. All of a sudden I'm feeling kind of stupid. Like, okay, let me go look this up and actually see, Santa Monica code only goes to title 14.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

Title 16 was made up by ChatGPT, which it grabbed from, like, a Bunch of places put together and then set it forth as if it was the law. And it does this with cases all the time. And actually, if you look it up, there's people who have been sanctioned because ChatGPT will make up case law, but make it look very, very real.

[Daniel Tosh]

All right, so they're not doing any leg. They're not, you know, it would take five seconds to look it up, to verify it. They're not going to do that.

[Niv Davidovich]

Right. So then they can't really verify it. So then they send all this stuff and they, they act as their own lawyers and the judges bend over backwards to let them get it all out. And so a lot of those pro purrs who, a lot of them are unfortunately mentally ill, they can drag out a UD an awful detainer for months and months and months and cost the client thousands upon thousands of dollars. And there's just not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it because you have to go through the process.

[Daniel Tosh]

What about these people that are doing short term that I'm always reading about? They're like doing short term Airbnb leases, and then they just stay for six months to a year and they can't get. I don't understand that because I feel like if I walked into my home and someone was just in my home, I would get them out of my home immediately.

[Niv Davidovich]

Right.

[Daniel Tosh]

With a sledgehammer or something. I don't. I don't. Maybe I don't go to that extreme, but I would. People just can't pull it off. Why are they. How are they.

[Niv Davidovich]

Can't pull off? What.

[Daniel Tosh]

How are these people staying in rentals forever?

[Niv Davidovich]

Once you get in and you're in, you have the access. Let's say that person is not. Is supposed to leave after a week. It's been a month. They don't pay. Their credit card's fake. Whatever. Okay, you call the police. The person says, I'm a tenant here. Here's my Airbnb contract. And the police will always tell you it's a civil matter. Go to court. Now, in la, there's no difference between a person who's been renting for a day or a month or a year.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay? What I'm saying is I don't call the police. I just go and pull that person out of my house.

[Niv Davidovich]

A, very dangerous.

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, yeah, I get that, but.

[Niv Davidovich]

And B, then the police will come and they'll arrest the person for. Or they'll arrest the landlord for doing assault. Now, I can't tell you that I haven't had to get a little physical with a tenant one time.

[Daniel Tosh]

You've gotten physical. And I only say it like that. I only say you because you don't strike me as someone that would bring it to that level.

[Niv Davidovich]

Well, what happened was this lady already got kicked out. So in other words, we went through the process.

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, that's the lady that makes a little more sense to me. Right.

[Niv Davidovich]

Okay, so we got a judgment against her. It was a Friday. The sheriff comes. Now, there's a difference between the sheriff and the police. It's the Los Angeles County Sheriff. Sheriff who actually does the lockouts, takes people out.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay?

[Niv Davidovich]

Versus when you call 91 1, they send you the police.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay?

[Niv Davidovich]

Two different agencies. Sheriff comes on a Friday, locks her out, gets her out somehow, either that evening or the next morning. I think it was that evening. It's a four story apartment building. She climbs over the outside of it. There's some sort of a stairwell or I don't know. She climbs over, jumps back down to her unit, breaks into that unit and she's back in. Say, okay, fine, we're going to take the front door off. They take the front door off. She goes out and gets a plywood piece the size of a door and ties it to the front. They call the police. They say, look, we already locked her out. She is now a trespasser. Please take her out. This lady have to hand it to her. She produces the best forged letter I've almost ever seen. And it's a forgery from the management company to her saying, sorry, we evicted you by accident. Can you please come back? So my client is showing up with the police with the. All the eviction papers. And she's showing up with this letter. And the police are saying, we don't know who's, who has the forgery, the letter or your court documents.

[Daniel Tosh]

We all know who has the right one, but.

[Niv Davidovich]

Okay, right, exactly. So they called the police three times over the course of that weekend. They refused to take her out. So I said, okay, Monday afternoon, bring seven of your workers.

[Daniel Tosh]

How many?

[Niv Davidovich]

Seven. Okay. And we're going to go, we're gonna go take care of this. We show up and she's holding the door. She's holding the. A rope that's tied around the door. I tell the guys, take down the door. They're like, we can't. So cut the rope. Cut the rope. Take the door off. And I order them to go inside and start taking all of her junk out. And she's standing in the doorway, she's like, you can't come in. So I am coming in because that's my client's unit. You're trespassing. She stood in front of the doorway and I pushed right through her. Just, I. I pushed her. Did you play sports?

[Daniel Tosh]

Did you play any sports growing up?

[Niv Davidovich]

Not really.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

Not a whole heck of a lot.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

But I pushed right past her.

[Daniel Tosh]

Did you go low?

[Niv Davidovich]

No, just went with my shoulder, you know, just like. That was it. And then she said, I'm calling the police. I said, fantastic, please call them. And when the police came, then this time I showed them all the documents and I said, these are the real documents. I'm the lawyer. I evicted her. This is the document showing we got possession. You have to take her away. Two hours later, after debating this, for some reason, they took her away and we took all of her junk out, and that's how we got back possession.

[Daniel Tosh]

And this is just happening constantly.

[Niv Davidovich]

Constantly. And if you go from LA county to outside of LA county, it's like going into a different country. None of this stuff happens in San Bernardino or Riverside, barely in Orange county or Ventura County. As soon as you get into LA county, it is like a magnet.

[Daniel Tosh]

Now, and why is that?

[Niv Davidovich]

It's la. It's. Look, I want to preface this by saying this, and I say this whenever I talk. 95% of tenants are absolutely lovely people. They go to work, they pay their rent on time, they follow the rules, you know, watch Netflix, go to sleep, rinse and repeat. That's all they want to do. And they're great. The other 5% are the psychos, and I only deal with the psychos.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah.

[Niv Davidovich]

And so they take up all the time, all the money and all the energy.

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, sure. When you're talking about 5% of a city of 10 million or so, that's a lot of people.

[Niv Davidovich]

It is a lot of psychos.

[Daniel Tosh]

What's your caseload like? Are you constantly getting work?

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah, yeah. Do you have.

[Daniel Tosh]

Do you turn work down every now and then?

[Niv Davidovich]

Depends on the client. I'm mostly. You know, sometimes the clients are crazier than the tenants, so I have to politely say no.

[Daniel Tosh]

How much of practicing law is just theater?

[Niv Davidovich]

The trial part is, I don't know, like 30, 40% theater.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

And the parts that I do, which is, you know, managing the clients, negotiating, there's a lot of theater involved.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay. Do you ever represent people being evicted? Some pro bono work type?

[Niv Davidovich]

I used to, every now and then. If it's someone from our community, we might help them out. If It's a situation where they're a landlord and a tenant. So if they are a company that is renting from someplace and using that to rent to other people will sometimes make exceptions for that. But other than that, we are landlord only.

[Daniel Tosh]

What do you say to people that want to get a bunch of rental properties as an investment? Where in Los Angeles?

[Niv Davidovich]

Don't. This is the way I explain it.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

Back in 50s, 6070s, even the 80s, if you wanted to have a full time job and just start investing in residential real estate, apartments in LA as a side hustle, you could do that. It didn't take up all your time, it didn't take up all your energy. Evictions were handled within, you know, 30 days, 60 days max. There were none of these jury trials and all that stuff. And so you could do that as a side hustle without it affecting your life. Back then it was like playing, let's say college badminton. Okay. Now being a landlord in LA is like playing in the NFL during playoffs. You have to be a professional at it and you have to be doing this full time, otherwise you will be railroaded.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay, Now I have two rental properties.

[Niv Davidovich]

I'm sorry to hear that.

[Daniel Tosh]

Now one of them has been rented by the same tenant. For how long, Eddie?

[Niv Davidovich]

14 years.

[Daniel Tosh]

14 years.

[Niv Davidovich]

Probably got one of the 95 percents.

[Daniel Tosh]

But he doesn't pay top dollar at all. Okay, just, I'm just, I'm taking a bath. But is it worth it? Because it's not a headache and it's been 14 years.

[Niv Davidovich]

If he's covering the mortgage and you're getting your tax benefits and you're making some money, well, there's certainly no mortgage.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, okay, okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

Then you're making money.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay, thank you, Nev. Does renting to higher end people, does that make it a better investment or less risky?

[Niv Davidovich]

It's both riskier and less risky. Generally speaking, the people who are higher end who are paying for nicer units, they are more concerned about their credit. They are less likely to run into situations where they don't have the money. And to a degree, maybe not in their like personal lives, but I guess in their financial dealings they're a lot less crazy. At the same time, it is harder to find, find those people to rent your units. And so Your unit, that's $8,000 a month, may sit vacant for longer. Yeah, and so that's where the risky part is. There's just fewer people statistically who can pay that amount of rent.

[Daniel Tosh]

Where do you stand on rent control?

[Niv Davidovich]

Very, very Very bad. But that's not just my opinion. Pretty much every single economic study that's ever been done, from liberal to conservative and everything in between, have always found that rent control is the best way to make rents higher.

[Daniel Tosh]

Except for the one that's under rent control.

[Niv Davidovich]

No, rent control makes rents higher, not lower. It temporarily controls rent for that particular person, but overall it causes rent to increase.

[Daniel Tosh]

How many areas in Los Angeles are under rent control?

[Niv Davidovich]

They're between the rent and the eviction control. Out of the 88 cities in LA County.

[Daniel Tosh]

88 cities. Did you guys know there's 88 cities in LA County?

[Niv Davidovich]

I did not.

[Daniel Tosh]

Didn't know it.

[Niv Davidovich]

So out of those 88, there's something like 15 or 20 that have some kind of rent and. Or eviction control.

[Daniel Tosh]

Santa Monica has a good one, don't they?

[Niv Davidovich]

The People's Republic of Santa Monica does. Yes.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah.

[Niv Davidovich]

Have a lot of fun rules.

[Daniel Tosh]

Do you have a lot of cases that come out of there?

[Niv Davidovich]

We have a decent amount of cases, yes.

[Daniel Tosh]

And is the goal always to get rid of the rent control? Like, is that what the landlord is trying to do?

[Niv Davidovich]

You mean like from a political standpoint?

[Daniel Tosh]

No. If you buy into a building that. That has rent control already built in, are you just trying to get those tenants out?

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah, a lot of the time when it was easier, that was. The business model is you buy a building where all the tenants are paying very, very low, below market rent. You buy them all out, cash for keys, and you renovate the units, build them with people who are paying market rate. And because of the differential where you bought it versus where it rents, you're making a lot of money. Right. Refinance out now that you have more equity. Rinse and repeat. Back in the day before COVID you could buy a tenant out for like 12, $15,000, and they would be super excited. And then all of a sudden, they. I don't know, they figured out how to do math and they realized that, oh, wait a minute, if I. It cost me an extra thousand dollars a month to go across the street and rent the same crappy unit. If he gives me $12,000, that just covers the rent differential for the year. So I haven't really won anything. And then they started demanding much, much higher amounts. Now, if you're demolishing the building, you want to redevelop it. Sometimes it's worth it to pay it. But if you're doing that business model that I just described, a lot of the times, it doesn't work.

[Daniel Tosh]

Do you have any Thoughts on how to fix or at least help the housing crisis in la?

[Niv Davidovich]

Yes. Okay, so many thoughts.

[Daniel Tosh]

What's the quickest fix?

[Niv Davidovich]

Number one, get rid of the rent control. Number two, make a law that says, all right, everybody can build whatever you want.

[Daniel Tosh]

Whoa, whatever you want? This is bonkers.

[Niv Davidovich]

Build however tall you want. Within limits, of course.

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, okay, that's not whatever you want.

[Niv Davidovich]

So I don't literally mean whatever you want, but not with all the restrictions that we have now in terms of height restrictions, in terms of how many square feet you can build. When you're building a single family home, they have like this anti mansionization. If you're building your own house, you can only build 45% of the covered square footage of however much square footage you have. All right, whose business is that? What difference does it make?

[Daniel Tosh]

I don't know.

[Niv Davidovich]

Exactly.

[Daniel Tosh]

Nobody wants to be next to an Amazon warehouse.

[Niv Davidovich]

No, but it's not an Amazon warehouse. It's just a big house. That's one example.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay, but what about all those McMansions in, like, West Hollywood in the flats?

[Niv Davidovich]

What difference does it make?

[Daniel Tosh]

I like the bungalows.

[Niv Davidovich]

That's because you don't have to live in the bungalow.

[Daniel Tosh]

I have one.

[Niv Davidovich]

Okay, but they're not living it. There you go. Where do you live?

[Daniel Tosh]

Here?

[Niv Davidovich]

Where? In Malibu?

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah.

[Niv Davidovich]

Okay, then you.

[Daniel Tosh]

Probably the Coastal Commission. Nothing is stricter than. Than them.

[Niv Davidovich]

I've argued in front of them that that was like. I'd call it a kangaroo court, but that's an insult to kangaroos. Oh, are kangaroos smart animals more than the Coastal Commission?

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah. Listen, I don't. You're preaching to the choir. I've gone through building permits for over four years to build the house that I live in.

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah. It's completely insane. I actually argued in front of them, and it was strange because I showed them that what we were doing was perfectly legal according to the rules that are in the Venice specific plan. Which is we were doing a remodel, but remodel is defined very loosely. So we were taking like a 1500 square foot house, leaving one of the walls, and then building a 3,000 square foot addition.

[Daniel Tosh]

That's not a remodel. Well, don't be an asshole.

[Niv Davidovich]

That's the way they wrote it.

[Daniel Tosh]

I get it. But I like that they say, you know what? I know what you're doing.

[Niv Davidovich]

And no, right now, theoretically, that might be true, but six out of the seven people were sitting there saying, look, he's right. That's the law. As it. As it is today, if we want to change it. We have to ask the city to change it. We can't rewrite the rules in the middle of the game. The other seven were like, yeah, laws, schmaws. Get out of here. And wouldn't let us do it. Staff made a report, said they are doing things right now. This new plan is perfectly legal. You should approve this. They were like, what do these guys know? They're just the people that we hired to actually be experts in this particular field. And they just said no. Why? Because a whole bunch of, you know, snoopy neighbors came and started arguing about things that had nothing to do with the law. So that stuff needs to go.

[Daniel Tosh]

They all say it here. They're like, we don't want to be Manhattan beach.

[Niv Davidovich]

Why not?

[Daniel Tosh]

They don't want it to look like that. They want there to be acreage.

[Niv Davidovich]

Lovely. Buy that property and make it yours and then leave it. Leave it open.

[Daniel Tosh]

What is. They force a certain amount of square footage.

[Niv Davidovich]

No, no, buy it. If you, as a private person want that to be nothing, then buy it and leave it Nothing. But to tell someone else what to do with their property, that has really nothing to do with you.

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, I mean, you can only buy so much property.

[Niv Davidovich]

You can only tell other people what to do.

[Daniel Tosh]

So much nev. We're talking in circles. What about the fires?

[Niv Davidovich]

What about them?

[Daniel Tosh]

Have you had work because of the displacement of people? And are you actively involved in creating an ability to actually rebuild in a way that makes sense or.

[Niv Davidovich]

No, not really involved in that. The way it's impacted my work is that because of the fires, it triggers this thing called a price gouging statute.

[Daniel Tosh]

Have you seen price gouging?

[Niv Davidovich]

Well, it depends on your definition of price gouging. So, again, the reason. Okay, so they kept the emergency open for, like, 11 months for a fire that they put out in January. Last January. Now, the reason they like to keep these emergencies open is because when there is a state of emergency, the local government has a lot more flexibility in how they can spend their money. And it's just. It gives power. Right, Right.

[Daniel Tosh]

They don't have to answer to as much.

[Niv Davidovich]

Right. Okay, so the county of Los Angeles has been in a consistent state of emergency for almost six years right now. There was Covid for, like, four years. Then in the city of L. A. They were like, oh, we're running out of that emergency. Let's make a homelessness emergency. So they passed a homelessness emergency, and the fires happened. So they kept that one going for 11 months in the middle of that one there was an ICE emergency. You know, like the immigration people. Yeah, they make it an emergency for that. And for a couple months, we literally had the fire and ICE emergency at the same time.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay, well, that's just good marketing, Right?

[Niv Davidovich]

Exactly. So anyway, every time they pass this emergency, not only do they get these powers, it also triggers the price gouging statute. I started sending letters left and right to every person who they thought was price gouging. And a lot of the times they weren't. Basic rule is you're not allowed to do more than 10% of what the last rent was.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay.

[Niv Davidovich]

But a lot of the times, let's say you have a person who wasn't renting their house in the year prior to the emergency, and now they want to put it on the market. So if that's the case, they limit that person's right to rent it for market. And they say you can only rent it for 160% of what the fair rental value is, according to HUD. HUD is the Federal Housing Department. These are numbers that they set up primarily for multifamily housing, not for large homes. They don't care. There's no exception for that in the price gouging statute. So it goes by number of rooms. So let's say you have a house In Bel Air, four bedrooms.

[Daniel Tosh]

Right. Where 100,000amonth is a number that can be thrown out. Right.

[Niv Davidovich]

They don't care. They'll take that four bedroom house and compare it to a four bedroom apartment in North Hollywood.

[Daniel Tosh]

Don't do it.

[Niv Davidovich]

What?

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, that's Pete's neck of the woods. North Hollywood.

[Niv Davidovich]

It's my neck of the woods too. I live in Valley Village.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay, well, Pete. Pete hates saying that he lives in North Hollywood. He loves to tell people at Studio City, but.

[Niv Davidovich]

Right. That's why they invented Studio City, because everyone got embarrassed of saying North Hollywood. Also. Also Valley Village, Valley Glen, Sherman Oaks.

[Daniel Tosh]

Uh huh.

[Niv Davidovich]

That all just used to be Van Nuys.

[Daniel Tosh]

It's just Van Nuys in North Hollywood, pretty much.

[Niv Davidovich]

And then everyone's like, I'm not telling anyone I live in Van Nuys.

[Daniel Tosh]

Pete, you got to embrace it.

[Niv Davidovich]

No ho, Pete. No ho.

[Daniel Tosh]

No ho.

[Niv Davidovich]

818 is great.

[Daniel Tosh]

There you go. 818 till I die.

[Niv Davidovich]

So anyway, so they're telling this lady, yeah, you can only rent your house. That's market value of $15,000 for $5,600. Why? Like, what does it have to do with the emergency? What does it do with the fire? Her house is nowhere near the Fire. The price she charges has nothing to do with price gouging. It's just the market rent.

[Daniel Tosh]

Well, so you handle this case?

[Caller]

Yeah.

[Daniel Tosh]

I mean, it just seems like so much work to like. Like, be able to charge your fair market.

[Niv Davidovich]

That's my point, is that you have. You have to stop doing that. Interfering with the economy and interfering with the housing market is what causes disruption in the housing supply. People are being chased out of here. The city and the county governments are telling landlords, we don't like you. We don't want you. We don't want you to make a living. We don't want you to do well. At the same time, please build more housing.

[Daniel Tosh]

Is your job dangerous?

[Niv Davidovich]

No.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, sorry. Well, no, it just. I don't even. It just seems like it's. Is it stressful?

[Niv Davidovich]

Yes.

[Daniel Tosh]

Do you bring that home with you? The anxiety?

[Niv Davidovich]

My wife and I actually work together, so. So she's. She's really great. So she sees me at home and. Yeah, I mean, it's. It's hard not to bring it home. She helps me, you know, tame it. And I think being a person of faith also helps me control it to a degree. But it is a very large amount of stress because it's. It's not just the loss. I'm also handling a lot of things in terms of being the head of the law firm.

[Daniel Tosh]

You're also the father of a dozen children, so.

[Niv Davidovich]

A dozen? It feels like a dozen children, but it's actually just five.

[Daniel Tosh]

Just five. The first time I've ever heard someone ever refer to five children as just five.

[Niv Davidovich]

You got to understand, in my community, I'm lazy.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, how dare you?

[Niv Davidovich]

Just kidding.

[Daniel Tosh]

What's your youngest? What's Your age range?

[Niv Davidovich]

6, 8? 10? 5? 12, 14.

[Daniel Tosh]

You guys gonna start back up again?

[Niv Davidovich]

No, Factory's closed.

[Daniel Tosh]

How large is your sukkah in the backyard?

[Niv Davidovich]

First of all, how do you know what a sukkah is?

[Daniel Tosh]

Just. I just can imagine. It's gotta be a large five kids. It's just so big. By the way, you only have one son. How does he handle it?

[Niv Davidovich]

I mean, it's great. He's like the little prince.

[Daniel Tosh]

Does he know that he's in a world of hurt?

[Niv Davidovich]

No, I don't think so. He's pretty chill.

[Daniel Tosh]

I had older sisters. I enjoyed it. But then at some point, I was like, oh, this is getting myself beat up a little bit. They didn't. They didn't teach me this side of life.

[Niv Davidovich]

Oh. I mean, they all beat each other up. Yeah.

[Daniel Tosh]

Have you ever Considered evicting any of your children? There's a question I want to know.

[Niv Davidovich]

Well, no, not yet, but I think they'll probably evict themselves faster than I'll want them to leave.

[Daniel Tosh]

Oh, that's. Isn't that the truth? Anybody's on the show, they get a gift. Okay. Now, okay, here's what I'm giving you. This. I've never. The only real job I ever had was Tosh zero.

[Niv Davidovich]

Okay.

[Daniel Tosh]

And so I had to go to work every day and I had to have, you know, whatever carry attache. And this one was, like, the first nice thing that my wife ever bought me. And she couldn't wrap her head around how much she spent on it, but she knew she had to buy it something nice because I'm a little bougie. And I didn't. But anyway, I'm like, honey, I don't need this. Any mulberry, that's a good brand. I go, I don't need this anymore. I have to give it away to someone more professional. A satchel. There you go.

[Niv Davidovich]

Oh, wow.

[Daniel Tosh]

You're going to love this. The only one I've ever had in my life. Well, thank you.

[Niv Davidovich]

I'm also a little bougie, so I appreciate this.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay. Now, do you have a pool? Yeah. Oh, good. Okay. Any of your kids surf?

[Niv Davidovich]

No.

[Daniel Tosh]

We need Jewish kids surfing. Okay. That's my. That's my thing.

[Niv Davidovich]

I think that would be less entertaining to watch than you think it would.

[Daniel Tosh]

I don't want to watch it. I want them to enjoy it.

[Niv Davidovich]

Okay.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay. Anyway, so I'm gonna give just this little beginner board to your kids. Okay. And this is fine because this is a soft top. So it does. And it's almond. I don't really like it, but it's. They can play with it in the pool. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. You're gonna get that off my desk? Just set that down. The kids will love it.

[Niv Davidovich]

Thank you.

[Daniel Tosh]

Is there anything a person can do if someone is living rent free in their head? What are their options?

[Niv Davidovich]

Now that is a very difficult one. Even I can't evict those people.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay, Niv, if I ever need your services, it's just gonna be to get Eddie out of my place.

[Niv Davidovich]

So now I know the tricks to stay. They're just delay tricks. Eventually, I get my people.

[Daniel Tosh]

He's gonna get you out. And I already know for sure that Niv could hip check your wife out of the way that way. Good luck. All right, Niv, thanks for coming on.

[Niv Davidovich]

Thank you so much for Having me. It was so much fun. Forget everything you had planned for this weekend because you are sitting on your.

[Daniel Tosh]

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[Niv Davidovich]

Could even win real cash Prizes.

[Daniel Tosh]

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[Niv Davidovich]

Sale for [e-mail] SpinQuest is a free to play social casino voidware prohibitive. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

[Daniel Tosh]

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[Niv Davidovich]

Upfront payment required $45 for three months.

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[Daniel Tosh]

Paw show. I want to thank Niv for being on the show. And if you ever, you ever see Niv in your ring cam, know that you've done a few things wrong. Carl, you ever been evicted? Any of you ever been evicted? No, I've never been evicted. I've evicted people. Usually girlfriends. Like, okay, that was a good run.

[Niv Davidovich]

You don't live here anymore?

[Daniel Tosh]

No, I had one just move downstairs.

[Niv Davidovich]

How was that?

[Daniel Tosh]

She's just like, well, I'm not leaving the house. You told me to live here. I'm like, okay, yeah, but that was when I Liked you. How long did that last? Until she gave up. A week? No, months. You don't give up on a winning lottery ticket like me in weeks.

[Niv Davidovich]

I said a week.

[Daniel Tosh]

But, yeah, you got to roll the dice. You gotta try to get a trap baby in the oven. Because I still would walk downstairs every now and then like, what's going on down here? I'm your landlord.

[Niv Davidovich]

How you doing?

[Daniel Tosh]

Rents due. Okay, there's. What should we call our patreon.com tosshow you see? Extended interview with Niv. The stuff that was too hot for YouTube. Are those. Should I cancel my subscription to our Patreon? No, that girl's gone wild. No, I'd keep that going. I keep getting. I keep getting new DVDs every month.

[Niv Davidovich]

Oh. Then I would say continue. Yeah.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah, I guess it's worth it. That was a real sketchy business.

[Niv Davidovich]

Yeah.

[Daniel Tosh]

That guy.

[Niv Davidovich]

That guy was quite a fella. He's in prison.

[Daniel Tosh]

He's in prison? I thought he just lived in Mexico. Yeah, he's in prison. Huh?

[Sponsor Voice]

Find out.

[Daniel Tosh]

All right, well, good for him. Him. He had a dream. He did. I'm gonna drug chicks, and then I film them naked, and then I'm gonna sell it on tv. Yeah. You know what? What? What? What would. I would buy a DVD of just the dads finding out that their daughters were on Girls Gone Wild. And just those reactions.

[Niv Davidovich]

Dad's gone insane.

[Daniel Tosh]

He does live in Mexico, so he's not in jail.

[Niv Davidovich]

Not in jail?

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah, he's in a big old palace in Mexico. I think it's like his house pops up on airbnb. Like, if you want to rent something awesome in Puerto Vallarta.

[Niv Davidovich]

He filed for bankruptcy in 2013.

[Daniel Tosh]

He filed for bankruptcy? Yeah. Nah, that doesn't mean anything. So did our president, like, 20 times. Okay. And he still gets to assault women. My first farewell tour. Tickets are on sale. We've added shows tossshowstore.com that place is still thriving with all kinds of sales. We got some voicemails for my wife's cousin Amanda, AKA Panda.

[Niv Davidovich]

We do.

[Daniel Tosh]

Let's see if the guys have sort of taken this seriously.

[Caller]

Hey, Daniel. My Name's Aaron. I'm 30 and a half years old, white. My driver's license says I'm 6ft tall, but I'm only 5' 11, 185 pounds. I think I'd be a good match for Panda because while I don't have any horse experience, I am a zookeeper, and I work with rhinos, which are a close relative. That and a horse bit. My sister when we were kids, so I've always had a respect for them. Also think the I thing's kind of hot, so. No problem there. I think you and I would get along because I'm a pretty chill guy who doesn't complain.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah. All right. What was his name?

[Niv Davidovich]

Aaron.

[Daniel Tosh]

Aaron the zookeeper. Mm. That's pretty cool. That's a cool job.

[Niv Davidovich]

Got animals and stuff.

[Daniel Tosh]

It'd be handy. Yeah, and he's. And he wants to teabag her eyes or whatever.

[Niv Davidovich]

He said he finds it kind of sexy.

[Daniel Tosh]

Yeah, he's into it. That's weird.

[Niv Davidovich]

Weird fetish, but okay.

[Daniel Tosh]

I mean, listen. To each his own. Yeah.

[Niv Davidovich]

Don't yuck another man's yum.

[Daniel Tosh]

All right, well, you got another one.

[Niv Davidovich]

Yep.

[Caller]

Hey, Daniel, this is Ethan in Indiana. I think I'd be a great fit for Amanda. I live out here in Indiana as well. Don't have much experience with horses. I've got a couple cats and I get along pretty well with them, so I think that would translate well. I forgot to say my hand weight. I'm 510 at 170. I think the only thing that might disqualify me is I do have an uncircumcised appendage. So if you could get with Amanda Pryor, just let her know, get back to me and let me know her opinion on that. If it's a deal breaker or not. I don't think I'd be willing to get that done at this stage of my life. But feel free to get back to me and let me know what you say she thinks.

[Niv Davidovich]

Thanks.

[Daniel Tosh]

Okay, first of all, let me remind everybody, she doesn't get a say in this.

[Niv Davidovich]

Right?

[Daniel Tosh]

This is me. I'm in control now. She had the first 38 years of her life to not successfully pick a partner. So now it's up to me, and I have. Just so you know that your one disqualifier, it might be the only positive. The cats, the 510, 170. That's. You know, those are things I'm having to. I'm struggling with the Indiana. That's not great. Uncircumcised penis. That's nice. So that is not a deal breaker. I hope people out there know that we're fine with uncircumcised penises. We almost prefer them. So bring em, bring em, bring em in. Bring em in by the bag full. See you next week.

[Sponsor Voice]

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[Niv Davidovich]

Possible.

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