Well, I’m up to my eyebrows in an eviction. This well and truly sucks, and is one of the most stressful and emotional events I’ve ever been through. I’m constantly torn between feelings of anger, remorse, and futility. Worrying over this has kept me up into early mornings for more than 6 weeks now.
I’m not looking for legal advice, or anecdotes. If you weren’t directly involved in the eviction, please say so. I’m mainly interested in facts, how things went, how things were resolved, and general feelings. Please don’t give any specific, identifiable details, and please try to keep the stories neutral.
What caused the eviction? How was rent due, or deposit, handled? How were the notices delivered? Was law enforcement or the courts involved? What kind of property was it? Were you the tenant, or the landlord, or the management company?
What would you have done differently, after experiencing the eviction?
I was going to post my own current experience, but I deleted it all because it’s still pending and I honestly don’t know what to say at any rate.
The last time I rented in Spain, it was through an agent who had evidently never even bothered to read appropiate laws. For example, when I saw the flat I pointed out several things that needed fixing, including one that was an evident and dangerous breach of code; the agent and owner agreed to have all of them fixed by the time I was moving in. When this date arrived, nothing had been fixed; by law, at this point I could just cancel the contract or I could move in; if I moved in, I could badger the owner/agent to fix things or I could get them fixed and deduct the cost from my monthly payments. I went with this last option, since that flat was miles above anything else I’d seen. The location is a beach area, so most rentals are ridiculously overpriced and shamelessly broken down.
The agent would yell at me and insult me, all the while (mis)quoting the laws that apply for sales, not for rental. She’d claim that I’d given up on renter’s rights which I had not, or agreed to pay for things which I had not and which the law states is the owner’s responsibility. I did hang up on her a couple times (both because my plane was leaving); I also moved pretty fast to having all communications from me to them in writing.
After a year they sent me a certified fax stating that they were evicting me because they had decided to sell the flat. This is actually not a valid reason per Spanish renter’s law (for the first five years the only valid reason, if the renter has been paying on time and not caused police calls from the neighbors, is that the owner is moving into the place), but since I had no interest in being in that place any more, I sent a certified fax back stating how and when they could set up a date to inspect the premises, and that if they did not set up such a date I’d just use the traditional system of not paying my last month as my deposit’s return.
They never set up that date, so I didn’t pay the last month. I did take dated pictures, in case they wanted to claim I’d damaged the place (which was actually in a better state than when I took it).
All my other rentals have gone pretty well, but those two didn’t seem to know their heads from their asses.
My mother’s “condo” includes a unit that’s rented out by the community. They’ve had to evict two renters for late payment; both times have been tense but without violence or the need for police intervention.
I work in rental property management, so I have plenty of eviction stories. My favorite is the tenant we had who was one of the best (or worst) con artists I have ever met. She constantly did things to separate people from their money. She once met a man outside of our office who told her he was looking for a room. She told him to give her $500 and she would give me an address of a rental. He did and she gave him a fake address.
Social Services paid for her to get into the apartment, but refused her any further help because she hadn’t been doing the necessary things to keep her welfare. She protested, we didn’t get the rent, and took her to court. When the sheriff came to lock her out, she claimed she had had heard nothing about the eviction and called the cops on the sheriff. I thought the police officer was going to break out laughing, but he managed to control himself. She did get locked out and disappared.
Later we found out she had been using our phone line and even asking the operator to do emergency cut ins on busy lines. She had been working off the books in a laundromat and offered to get the owner new floor tiles for $600. He gave her the money!
My eviction story won’t be helpful in a legal sense but it might make you feel better.
It was in 1967 in Iowa. We had two children and I was pregnant with our third. My husband was working for the area’s largest employer, a factory, and they had a big lay-off. Our only income was my husband’s unemployment – $17 a week at the time and the rent was $55 a month. There might have been some public assistance available to us, but we didn’t know to ask.
We explained the situation to the landlord and asked him to be patient. He said he would. We’d never been late with the rent.
About a week after we talked to the landlord, the sheriff showed up at the door with the eviction notice. I called my mom in Seattle and asked for a loan for the rent. She offered instead to send us enough money to come to Seattle.
We packed up, stored some stuff at an in-law’s, and left for Seattle, where things worked out well. I’m glad it happened, now that I think back. We did a lot better in Seattle than we would have if we’d stayed.
I’ve been evicted twice, both times while on a month-to-month lease. Where I live, if a lease expires and the parties don’t sign a lease extension, the lease automatically converts to monthly, terminatable by either party on sufficient notice.
First incident, I was working an extremely low-paying job on short hours and struggled to make rent each month. The landlord was actually OK with it but the downstairs neihbor, who served as de facto property manager, decided he wanted to, of all things, convert the house into a boarding house for German exchange students and so convinced the landlord to kick me to the curb. No real drama, just a pain in my ass scraping together another security deposit on short notice.
Second incident I was living in what turned out to be an illegal room (did not meet city ordinance definition of “room” for rental purposes) although that ended up not being a factor. Living with asshole roommates, one of whom was also serving as the property manager (although he would later deny it). The written lease expired and the roommates thought I was moving out on a particular date but I had no intention of leaving until the end of the required notification period, entirely to piss them off. On “moving day” the roommates started moving my possessions out onto the lawn, so I called the cops and reported them for burglary. The cops told them to knock it the fuck off, the landlord showed up later that day with the paperwork and I moved out a month later. Then I had to sue the landlord and the roommate/property manager because they illegally retained my security deposit, but that’s another story.
I once got evicted because I accidently peed on my landlord. I got the eviction notice the next day and was moved out in a week. I don’t know how long I legally had to move out, but I didn’t want to have to explain to any authorities as to why I was getting evicted.
I suppose I can’t leave it at that without the details. My apt was on the second floor - directly above the landlord’s apt. Some friends and I were having a get together at my place. Not really a party, but any noise at all (just the TV at normal volume) after about 9:00 PM would piss the landlord off. Which is another reason why I didn’t fight the eviction.
Anyway, there were about six guys in my apt drinking beer and there was only one bathroom. I had to pee, but someone was in the bathroom. So, I went out on to my deck and peed off the side. There is nothing below this deck but grass. It was dark out and I thought it would be safe. As it turns out, the landlord had walked out of his back door and under my balcony to yell at us at the same time I let loose.
I heard some swearing, but he must’ve then gone back inside. I got a notice on my door the next day. I really didn’t want to face the guy, so I just packed up and left.
I didn’t get evicted, per se, but the apartment my roommates and I were in got condemned after the furnace broke and the landlord just up and refused to fix it. This was January in Baltimore, so while it wasn’t super cold, the temps were in the 30s during the day and 20s at night. My roommates both had girlfriends, and they quickly moved in with them until we could find another place. The asshole landlord just told us to stop paying rent, and he kept the security deposit(!) We were going to sue him, but it would have been a lot of work, we figured. I called up some official, who came out and declared the place condemned. I wasn’t as lucky as my roommates, so I toughed it out for a few weeks (oh, and the hot water pipes broke within a few days, too), and then we eventually moved. I kind of felt like I was camping, except it probably wasn’t as comfortable. I didn’t do so well that semester in college, now that I think about it…
I was a “bystander” in this eviction - my sister-in-law lived in the apartment above my husband and I, with her teenage daughter. Turns out that she didn’t pay rent for 5 months and supposedly ignored a court date or something (she claims she was never informed), and ended up getting served papers to appear. She came to my husband and I asking for a loan; we ended up paying her back rent and nothing more (she also wanted court fees, etc.). After making the payment and appearing in court, this stopped the eviction, but since it was only a month and a half or so from the end of her year-long lease, the lease was not renewed.
I would google up things like “x county social services” and “x community action program” and “x attorney general landlord tenant”, where x=your location.
In my limited experience, the vast majority of legitimate, law-abiding landlords are willing to work (up to a point, of course) with delinquent tenants as it is generally much cheaper than going through the eviction process. Your state’s attorney general office will provide guidance regarding the law, while county social services and local community action programs may be able to provide financial assistance (assuming their programs have not been cut to the bone. Landlords in my area are known to call in to providing agencies and ask things like, “Do you have funding yet?”, and if the answer is “Yes” they send out eviction notices en masse.).
Also check out agencies like the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services, and other NGOs as fits your neck of the woods - keeping in mind that the Red Cross does fires, not non-payment of rent.
In my (again, limited) experience, landlords hate going to court. It costs too much. It’s much simpler to work out arrangements with the tenant.
I recently went after a teacher for $26,000 in rent arrears, and another couple of employed people for similar amounts. Essentially my client’s property manager never bothered to deal with the deadbeats over a few years. I had a very difficult time not laughing out loud when the teacher called to ask why he was being evicted.
On the flip side of the coin, however, I sit on a tribunal that handles appeals by people who have been rejected for or evicted from social housing. It really hurts to have to turn down people who are clearly in need, but who’s need does not rank them high enough relative to others with even greater need.
