While just over three-quarters of the Southern California listings in the Apartments.com survey did come with refrigerators, that probably overstates the case. The data were limited to complexes with 20 or more units, and property managers say that the most frequent fridge-less apartments are smaller buildings owned by mom-and-pop landlords. One property manager said about half of the 500 units hes responsible for in L.A. do not provide the appliance.

The simplest answer for why Los Angeles landlords dont provide refrigerators is that they dont have to.

California law does not require refrigerators to be included in rental units, instead classifying them as amenities that arent necessary to meet habitability standards. Its like a hot tub, Maloney said, incredulously.

Buying and maintaining a refrigerator became an extra expense that landlords just didnt want, said Deena Eberly, managing director of the Eberly Company, which manages 4,200 apartments in L.A. County. When they broke, Eberly said, tenants would complain that they had just gone to the grocery store and demand reimbursement.

It was always the liability of food, said Eberly, whose family has owned and operated rentals in L.A. since the 1920s. That was the thought process behind it.

Its a different story in New York. Although refrigerators arent explicitly referenced in state law there, multiple appellate court rulings have cited a lack of the appliance when castigating landlords for maintaining unlivable apartments precedents that strongly encourage owners to pony up for a fridge so as not to be sued.

But legal reasons alone do not explain Southern Californias relative dearth of refrigerators. Other large states like Florida and Texas do not require fridges either, but they come standard with apartments.