FEATURE
No Cause, No Problem
WWW.BENDSOURCE.COM / NOVEMBER 4, 2021 / BEND’S INDEPENDENT VOICE
10
Without the ability to evict, landlords resort to more informal means to kick out tenants By Jack Harvel
Jack Harvel
Paul Parrish stands on the deck in front of his rented house on Sunday, Oct. 31. After 13 years he’s being evicted, and claims the landlord is retaliating against him.
O
n Sept. 23 Paul Parrish got a letter from his landlord telling him that he’d have to evacuate his home the day before Christmas Eve or face eviction from his single-wide trailer in Sunriver. The U.S Army veteran lived there for 13 years, and watched it gradually sink into disrepair as the now 50-yearold home neared the end of its lifecycle. The front deck is rotted to the point that FedEx won’t bring packages to the door. Water seeps in through the roof when it rains. The front door doesn’t fully shut. The refrigerator is broken, and Parrish has to constantly transfer food to the freezer and back to make sure nothing spoils. The hot water pipes under the house leak, so they’re kept off unless needed to avoid sky-high utility bills. There’s no ventilation in the kitchen and smoke fills the house whenever he cooks. “I’ve actually talked to him about this and a whole bunch of other stuff, but they never did nothing,” Parrish said of the landlord. “It’s like they couldn't care less, and I didn’t push it because I have more of a fear of, they might just kick me out, and then where am I going to go?” With little support from the landlord, Parrish took maintenance upon himself. He’s fixed busted pipes under the house, reconnected the power line to the house and paid arborists to cut down a tree that could collapse on the roof. “You would think that they would appreciate the fact that I’ve never messed
with them at all, and they haven’t had to spend any money,” Parrish said. This isn’t the first time Parrish’s landlord served him an eviction notice. Over a year prior, on Sept. 1, 2020, a letter informed him of the landlord’s intent to demolish the premises so a 2,000-squarefoot home could be built as the landlord’s primary residence. A no-cause eviction was unlawful at the time under Oregon’s
on the River's Edge Golf Course. The firm insists they've conducted everything above board during the eviction. "I'm just not sure what I'm retaliating against," said Frances Mann, the lawyer who sent the most recent eviction notice.. "We're allowed to send him the notice under the law, his landlord wants to move back to the properties, and that's why I've sent the notice."
“We know that landlords are harassing people, and that is a form of landlord-based eviction. We know this, because tenants have been telling us this when we survey them.” —Kim McCarty eviction moratorium effective June 1, 2020, and Parrish disputed it, starting a contentious relationship with the landlord and his attorneys. “I can’t believe these attorneys are supposed to be high-powered attorneys that know everything. But apparently, they must not know that much about evictions in the law. Because I hit him on that. I called him and told him that this 90-day is illegal,” Parrish said. The firm representing the landlord is Francis, Hansen and Martin, a local firm who recently represented homeowners
Tenants are entitled to 90-day notices in Portland, Milwaukie and Bend. Parrish said the attorneys were hostile during the first attempt but eased up after he filed a complaint with the Oregon State Bar, which he retracted after the lawyers abandoned the eviction order. Understanding that he would have to move soon, Parrish found a new rental in January of 2021. He’d offered to pay the whole lease up front, and the deal was almost done until his current landlord gave a bad reference. “I could of [sic] been out February 2021 but he gave me a bad reference by saying,
‘even though there’s been a problem getting him to vacate I’d still rent to him again.’ Nobody wants to hear that on a rental,” he wrote to the landlord’s attorney. Parish’s eviction notice from Sept. 23, 2021, contained a compromise. If he vacated by Oct. 8, he’d be given a $1,300 buyout. “If you remain on the Property past the 90 days, then I will be left with no option but to file a civil suit to have you removed from the Property, which may result in costs and attorney fees you will be responsible for. Either way your tenancy will not be extended or continued at the Property,” a letter from the attorneys said. “How you choose to leave, with more cash in your pocket or not, is completely up to you.” Parish, unable to find a new place in 17 days and not satisfied with the $1,300 offer, declined. He believed the timing of the eviction, threatening to withhold his security deposit and the allusion that he’d get bad references if he didn’t remove himself were attempts to retaliate after he refused the first eviction attempt and complained to the state bar association. “It’s kind of like they purposely did those dates just to mess with me, saying we’re going to mess up this guy’s Christmas, too, we’re going to make it so you can’t celebrate Christmas,” he said. “If you ask me, that’s tenant retaliation on their part.”
