Most apartment hunters have a list of their own must-haves.

One amenity that seems basic, however, is often missing from apartments in Los Angeles and Orange counties: a refrigerator.

In an interview for "LA Times Today," LA Times housing reporter Liam Dillon told host Lisa McRee the cold truth behind these vanishing ice boxes.

Dillon explained that getting an apartment with a refrigerator is more difficult in California than in any other state.

"The first, easiest, simplest answer for why apartments here often don't come with fridges is that landlords don't have to provide them here. There is nothing in California law that says you have to have a fridge to keep an apartment habitable. And if a landlord doesn't have to provide something, something that costs money, then they're not going to do it. And that's what we found here. They don't want the responsibility to buy and maintain the fridge," he said. 

Other states, like New York, require refrigerators in apartments. Florida and Texas are similar to California, but the norm there is to provide a fridge, even though it's not required.

Dillon spoke to tenants in Southern California about the underground fridge market.

"If you go on Facebook Marketplace, or on Craigslist, or any apps that sell things, you'll find hundreds of ads for used fridges. I talked to one renter who has been in LA 20 years. He ended up finding what he called a 'fridge dealer' in the Yellow Pages, of all places, and the guy happened to be very close to the apartment and drove by and dropped the fridge off and everything worked. What we also find, too, is that a lot of people pass their fridges down to the next tenants," Dillon explained.

Once tenants obtain their refrigerators, Dillon said, the ordeal of getting the appliance into their apartments can be a long and arduous one. He shared the story of one renter who obtained a fridge, then had to wait for hours to get someone to help him bring it inside, only to realize it was to big to get into his apartment.

Click the arrow above to watch the full interview.

Watch "LA Times Today" at 7 and 10 p.m. Monday through Friday on Spectrum News 1 and the Spectrum News app.