8 ms·

I anecdotally know of a few cases in Seattle where tenants with high incomes that could easily pay just don't. There is a subculture that actively encourages th

I anecdotally know of a few cases in Seattle where tenants with high incomes that could easily pay just don't. There is a subculture that actively encourages this type of behavior and the laws are setup such that there are almost no consequences for it. I've also met people who bragged about doing it. While rare, it is still common enough that it has become a real problem and has become socially acceptable in some circles. It is corrosive to the social contract when government policy tacitly encourages this behavior.

CursedSilicon 4mo ago
As someone who also lives in Seattle, I'd be curious to see any verifiable citations to such a wild claim
- abhinai 4mo ago
  He said “anecdotally”. In any case, I was wondering that if I know a friend who does this, how could I ever present a verifiable citation for it? You may have to rethink your ask.
  - CursedSilicon 4mo ago
    Anecdotes aren't usually admissible as evidence, is the thing
    - itake 4mo ago
      https://www.discovery.org/a/nightmare-tenant-in-bellevue-confronted-by-landlord/ https://www.discovery.org/a/nightmare-tenant-in-bellevue-con... I’m on phone but if you search “Kim Seattle landlord” you can get more details of various articles on the situation.
      - abhinai 4mo ago
        That is such a sad article.
  - mmooss 4mo ago
    Sure, but the comment upthread could provide evidence that "it is still common enough that it has become a real problem".
  - albedoa 4mo ago
    Okay. I can anecdotally tell you that user jandrewrogers does not know of any cases in Seattle where tenants with high incomes that could easily pay just don't. Our anecdotes cancel each other out. > how could I ever present a verifiable citation for it? There would likely be at least one (1) report of such a wild claim due to how wild it is. We wouldn't need anecdotes!
- lelandfe 4mo ago
  I only know of one https://komonews.com/news/local/twitter-shutdown-seattle-office-after-not-paying-rent-new-york-times-reports-elon-musk-ceo-tech-jobs-amazon-facebook-washington-state-employees-workers-tweets https://komonews.com/news/local/twitter-shutdown-seattle-off...
  - CursedSilicon 4mo ago
    I mean, Elmo's SpaceX is busy lying about being "In Redmond" too (they're in Redmond Ridge, a significantly more rural area about 6 miles away)
- cyberax 4mo ago
  There are such people. I have a unit in Seattle that sits empty because I don't want to risk getting stuck with such tenants. In Seattle, you can't: 1. Evict people from November to April (it's "winter"). 2. Evict people with schoolchildren during the school year. 3. Run background checks on prospective tenants. 4. You _must_ rent to the first qualifying tenant. 5. You must offer 3 months in rent as compensation if you decline to renew the lease. 6. The maximum rent increase is capped. Oh, and eviction process takes about 1.5 years now because the courts are overloaded and the tenant can use procedural tricks to drag out the process. If you want names, this case made newspapers: https://wealthandpoverty.center/2025/02/11/the-bellevue-squatting-case-reveals-a-broken-eviction-system-in-king-county/ https://wealthandpoverty.center/2025/02/11/the-bellevue-squa...
  - itake 4mo ago
    I explicitly bought in Lynwood so I’d have the option to rent out my house and avoid king county
  - pixelatedindex 4mo ago
    Apart from maybe being a little more flexible on evictions, none of the other reasons seem problematic. For instance not renting to the first qualifying tenant is a common root for discrimination. Why wouldn’t you rent to the first qualifying candidate? The giving tenant three month rent thing is for a very small circumstance - for example huge rent increases if the tenant income is low, condo remodeling, etc. The wording is: “landlords who issue a housing cost increase of 10% or more (within a 12-month period) must pay relocation assistance if the affected household earns 80% or less of the Area Median Income and chooses to move.” Maximum rent increase being capped also makes sense - I’ve been hit with 15-20% rent increases with no choice but to move. It seems like you don’t like the tenant having any rights, and you want to impose your will upon them.
    - nikkwong 4mo ago
      This is an insanely bad take. > For instance not renting to the first qualifying tenant is a common root for discrimination. Why wouldn’t you rent to the first qualifying candidate? You should be able to select freely who you want to have live in your house. If you're a building owner, there are reasons that you might want to be able to have freedom of choice in choosing who you have live in your building. When the government forces you to choose the first applicant who meets your selection criteria, your selection criteria becomes incredibly strict—720+ credit score, makes 4x the rent, etc. Especially when evicting a bad tenant becomes basically impossible, landlords work even harder to vet candidates, meaning there are a lot of false negatives that aren't offered housing. Seriously, you can't evict a tenant just because its winter? You know how many people take advantage of that — read my sibling comment in my thread. I myself in Seattle have dealt with multiple tenants who have done this so they could have free rent as their lease expired. What do you think this does to my tenant selection process? I up the bar. > Maximum rent increase being capped also makes sense - I’ve been hit with 15-20% rent increases with no choice but to move. You act like there's an oligopoly that dictates rent prices from their mountaintop that we all have to abide by. We live in a free market, and small landlords compete with large buildings for tenants. Creating these types of caps just makes the system less efficient — focuses efforts on the false pretense of tenants rights rather than the true equalizer like building more housing. And honestly, it just drives small landlords out of the market who can't handle it. This just leaves corporate landlords who are certainly less tenant friendly and will further this tenant vs landlord arms-race. We should be creating incentives and making it easy for individual homeowners to become landlords (at least in Seattle) if we want the paradigm to improve.
- itake 4mo ago
  https://www.nationalreview.com/news/seattle-area-landlord-trying-to-evict-serial-squatter-over-two-years-of-non-payment/ https://www.nationalreview.com/news/seattle-area-landlord-tr... One news article mentioned he worked in the medical field and when he was approved to move in, his income was $300k+). The state actually ended up helping cover the lost rent and paid for the tenant’s legal bills for fighting the eviction. https://www.discovery.org/a/nightmare-tenant-in-bellevue-confronted-by-landlord/ https://www.discovery.org/a/nightmare-tenant-in-bellevue-con...
nikkwong 4mo ago
It's not rare. I repeat. It's not rare. I am a landlord in Seattle with ~55 active tenants/leases. Let's just say that I know of many landlords in the circles I run in that have absolutely stopped renting to leftie types because they've had so many issues over the last few years with many of them over litigating everything; and deciding not to pay rent over the smallest non-issues, or just not paying rent at all. I could cite case after case; and this topic is especially salient to me in the present moment because I am in fact dealing with one of these tenants right now and its a total nightmare. I will spare you the gruesome details of trying to work with this particular tenant but just trust me—I have an incredibly high tolerance to stress and this individual is doing their best to get as far under my skin as possible. When the political class or the cultural zeitgeist tells you over and over that landlords are leeches and that "any attempt to profit off of housing is unethical"—people are going to take that to heart and have a hatred for even well-meaning small landlords. If you don't believe this is the attitude, go visit r/Seattle. The inflammatory language of politicians and cultural leaders sets the tone which plays out as legal battles and fights in properties across the city. This obviously creates an adverse selection problem where small landlords illegally apply their own prejudices and biases in tenant selection. Honestly—could you expect them not to—when the repercussions of picking a bad tenant are so great? And when there are other demographic groups—like immigrants—who are absolutely, verifiably and consistently reliable as tenants. It used to be that it was the section 8 or low income type that were a huge problem but now there's an educated leftish fringe that landlords are also avoiding. Honestly with good reason, IMO. Some homeowners just decide to not list extra rooms in their house outright. I remember hearing something like that Seattle has the highest number of unrented empty rooms in the country (though someone should fact check that). With the political climate the way it is here, it's obvious as to why this is the case.
- teachrdan 4mo ago
  With all due respect, do you consider yourself, with ~55 active tenants/leases, to be a "small landlord"?
  - bombcar 4mo ago
    I read their story as "I'm not small, but I know a lot of smalls who tell me things they won't even tell their confessor."
pjc50 4mo ago
> corrosive to the social contract What we see is iterated prisoner's dilemma. Enough people have had their landlords play "defect" against them (rent rises in excess of wage inflation, evictions, failure to do maintenance, intrusion) that the public have started playing "defect" against the landlords. Same as in a lot of American public life.
- mrguyorama 4mo ago
  Also like, objectively the courts are on the side of evictions. They have lots of practice and your local PD will be happy to help. The process works just fine. Most places have a pretty clean eviction process: You provide a very short notice, 14 days for non-payment, and then get a court hearing. If landlords are upset that it takes a long time to get to a court date, sorry, get in line with the rest of us who can't get basic Justice because the US doesn't fund public services, which the court is. Like what do you expect, that we just throw people out onto the street on your word? Do you not see how obviously that will get abused?

CursedSilicon 4mo ago

As someone who also lives in Seattle, I'd be curious to see any verifiable citations to such a wild claim

abhinai 4mo ago
He said “anecdotally”. In any case, I was wondering that if I know a friend who does this, how could I ever present a verifiable citation for it? You may have to rethink your ask.
- CursedSilicon 4mo ago
  Anecdotes aren't usually admissible as evidence, is the thing
  - itake 4mo ago
    https://www.discovery.org/a/nightmare-tenant-in-bellevue-confronted-by-landlord/ https://www.discovery.org/a/nightmare-tenant-in-bellevue-con... I’m on phone but if you search “Kim Seattle landlord” you can get more details of various articles on the situation.
    - abhinai 4mo ago
      That is such a sad article.
- mmooss 4mo ago
  Sure, but the comment upthread could provide evidence that "it is still common enough that it has become a real problem".
- albedoa 4mo ago
  Okay. I can anecdotally tell you that user jandrewrogers does not know of any cases in Seattle where tenants with high incomes that could easily pay just don't. Our anecdotes cancel each other out. > how could I ever present a verifiable citation for it? There would likely be at least one (1) report of such a wild claim due to how wild it is. We wouldn't need anecdotes!
lelandfe 4mo ago
I only know of one https://komonews.com/news/local/twitter-shutdown-seattle-office-after-not-paying-rent-new-york-times-reports-elon-musk-ceo-tech-jobs-amazon-facebook-washington-state-employees-workers-tweets https://komonews.com/news/local/twitter-shutdown-seattle-off...
- CursedSilicon 4mo ago
  I mean, Elmo's SpaceX is busy lying about being "In Redmond" too (they're in Redmond Ridge, a significantly more rural area about 6 miles away)
cyberax 4mo ago
There are such people. I have a unit in Seattle that sits empty because I don't want to risk getting stuck with such tenants. In Seattle, you can't: 1. Evict people from November to April (it's "winter"). 2. Evict people with schoolchildren during the school year. 3. Run background checks on prospective tenants. 4. You _must_ rent to the first qualifying tenant. 5. You must offer 3 months in rent as compensation if you decline to renew the lease. 6. The maximum rent increase is capped. Oh, and eviction process takes about 1.5 years now because the courts are overloaded and the tenant can use procedural tricks to drag out the process. If you want names, this case made newspapers: https://wealthandpoverty.center/2025/02/11/the-bellevue-squatting-case-reveals-a-broken-eviction-system-in-king-county/ https://wealthandpoverty.center/2025/02/11/the-bellevue-squa...
- itake 4mo ago
  I explicitly bought in Lynwood so I’d have the option to rent out my house and avoid king county
- pixelatedindex 4mo ago
  Apart from maybe being a little more flexible on evictions, none of the other reasons seem problematic. For instance not renting to the first qualifying tenant is a common root for discrimination. Why wouldn’t you rent to the first qualifying candidate? The giving tenant three month rent thing is for a very small circumstance - for example huge rent increases if the tenant income is low, condo remodeling, etc. The wording is: “landlords who issue a housing cost increase of 10% or more (within a 12-month period) must pay relocation assistance if the affected household earns 80% or less of the Area Median Income and chooses to move.” Maximum rent increase being capped also makes sense - I’ve been hit with 15-20% rent increases with no choice but to move. It seems like you don’t like the tenant having any rights, and you want to impose your will upon them.
  - nikkwong 4mo ago
    This is an insanely bad take. > For instance not renting to the first qualifying tenant is a common root for discrimination. Why wouldn’t you rent to the first qualifying candidate? You should be able to select freely who you want to have live in your house. If you're a building owner, there are reasons that you might want to be able to have freedom of choice in choosing who you have live in your building. When the government forces you to choose the first applicant who meets your selection criteria, your selection criteria becomes incredibly strict—720+ credit score, makes 4x the rent, etc. Especially when evicting a bad tenant becomes basically impossible, landlords work even harder to vet candidates, meaning there are a lot of false negatives that aren't offered housing. Seriously, you can't evict a tenant just because its winter? You know how many people take advantage of that — read my sibling comment in my thread. I myself in Seattle have dealt with multiple tenants who have done this so they could have free rent as their lease expired. What do you think this does to my tenant selection process? I up the bar. > Maximum rent increase being capped also makes sense - I’ve been hit with 15-20% rent increases with no choice but to move. You act like there's an oligopoly that dictates rent prices from their mountaintop that we all have to abide by. We live in a free market, and small landlords compete with large buildings for tenants. Creating these types of caps just makes the system less efficient — focuses efforts on the false pretense of tenants rights rather than the true equalizer like building more housing. And honestly, it just drives small landlords out of the market who can't handle it. This just leaves corporate landlords who are certainly less tenant friendly and will further this tenant vs landlord arms-race. We should be creating incentives and making it easy for individual homeowners to become landlords (at least in Seattle) if we want the paradigm to improve.
itake 4mo ago
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/seattle-area-landlord-trying-to-evict-serial-squatter-over-two-years-of-non-payment/ https://www.nationalreview.com/news/seattle-area-landlord-tr... One news article mentioned he worked in the medical field and when he was approved to move in, his income was $300k+). The state actually ended up helping cover the lost rent and paid for the tenant’s legal bills for fighting the eviction. https://www.discovery.org/a/nightmare-tenant-in-bellevue-confronted-by-landlord/ https://www.discovery.org/a/nightmare-tenant-in-bellevue-con...

nikkwong 4mo ago

It's not rare. I repeat. It's not rare. I am a landlord in Seattle with ~55 active tenants/leases. Let's just say that I know of many landlords in the circles I run in that have absolutely stopped renting to leftie types because they've had so many issues over the last few years with many of them over litigating everything; and deciding not to pay rent over the smallest non-issues, or just not paying rent at all. I could cite case after case; and this topic is especially salient to me in the present moment because I am in fact dealing with one of these tenants right now and its a total nightmare. I will spare you the gruesome details of trying to work with this particular tenant but just trust me—I have an incredibly high tolerance to stress and this individual is doing their best to get as far under my skin as possible. When the political class or the cultural zeitgeist tells you over and over that landlords are leeches and that "any attempt to profit off of housing is unethical"—people are going to take that to heart and have a hatred for even well-meaning small landlords. If you don't believe this is the attitude, go visit r/Seattle. The inflammatory language of politicians and cultural leaders sets the tone which plays out as legal battles and fights in properties across the city. This obviously creates an adverse selection problem where small landlords illegally apply their own prejudices and biases in tenant selection. Honestly—could you expect them not to—when the repercussions of picking a bad tenant are so great? And when there are other demographic groups—like immigrants—who are absolutely, verifiably and consistently reliable as tenants. It used to be that it was the section 8 or low income type that were a huge problem but now there's an educated leftish fringe that landlords are also avoiding. Honestly with good reason, IMO. Some homeowners just decide to not list extra rooms in their house outright. I remember hearing something like that Seattle has the highest number of unrented empty rooms in the country (though someone should fact check that). With the political climate the way it is here, it's obvious as to why this is the case.

teachrdan 4mo ago
With all due respect, do you consider yourself, with ~55 active tenants/leases, to be a "small landlord"?
- bombcar 4mo ago
  I read their story as "I'm not small, but I know a lot of smalls who tell me things they won't even tell their confessor."

pjc50 4mo ago

> corrosive to the social contract What we see is iterated prisoner's dilemma. Enough people have had their landlords play "defect" against them (rent rises in excess of wage inflation, evictions, failure to do maintenance, intrusion) that the public have started playing "defect" against the landlords. Same as in a lot of American public life.

mrguyorama 4mo ago
Also like, objectively the courts are on the side of evictions. They have lots of practice and your local PD will be happy to help. The process works just fine. Most places have a pretty clean eviction process: You provide a very short notice, 14 days for non-payment, and then get a court hearing. If landlords are upset that it takes a long time to get to a court date, sorry, get in line with the rest of us who can't get basic Justice because the US doesn't fund public services, which the court is. Like what do you expect, that we just throw people out onto the street on your word? Do you not see how obviously that will get abused?