The Cost of Eviction

It was yet another too-hot summer day when Itzel and I arrived at Doña Teresa’s home. Itzel exited to knock as I backed my car up to her doorstep, stealing the occasional glance towards the front window in the hopes of spotting her famed cat (and unofficial union mascot), Seaweed. I parked and Doña Teresa was out the door, led by Itzel while they exchanged hellos. 

Ask anyone that knows her and I think they’d tell you the same thing - Doña Teresa is a bright spot in the union. Always wearing a kind smile, Itzel and I were eager to get to know her better. All three of us got in the car and off we went, our destination: the Denny’s at 7th St and Camelback road. After placing our order, speaking over the whirring of the overworked AC, it was time for the interview. What followed wasn’t so much a typical question and answer session, but a full recounting of the events leading up to and during Doña Teresa’s eviction, the very eviction that led to her joining the union. This retaliatory non-renewal of the lease, as well as the preceding and subsequent abuse that Doña Teresa faced are all too common events as evictions skyrocket throughout the state. 

The following has been transcribed and translated from Spanish, as well as edited for clarity.  

Thank you so much for agreeing to the interview today. How did you get involved with the tenants union?

Ah. Well, a gentleman who was my neighbor Tony. He told me about the union when I had trouble- I got evicted. And then William and another man came, Carlos? No. Thomas - him! They told me that they were going to help me. 

I started to get involved with the court because the landlord left me with nothing. She had tenants who were very racist. 

One of these tenants, my neighbor who lived behind me, would say a lot of things in English to offend me. One day she even hit me. She hit me, oh, yeah, because she didn't want me to live there. The apartment in the back had a little laundry room, but it didn't have a door. So I liked to put the clothes on the floor to sort. 

She told me that I was dirty, but she would be more vulgar. She told me of course I was Mexican, to be so dirty. She started to say more, but I didn't pay attention to her. And then sometimes she would tell me, “you don't hear me?” 

My daughter would tell me because her bedroom window looked out onto the patio. So my daughter was listening to her and since she knew English, she was understanding everything. She would say, “Mom, that's not right, it’s”- what do you call that word? -Harassment. “You should tell the police.” because it was every day. I could not go out to the patio while she was acting up. 

I told her, “No, mija, because now the rents are very expensive.” 

At that time rent was $750, although later they raised it, but it was less than a thousand. I told her that now it is very difficult to find something. We are not so bad here. But [the harassment] was every day. And since she was a good friend of the owner, she tried to influence her. She involved the city three times. When the city came, I would say, “tell me what needs to be done” and then I would change it, so there was nothing they could hold against me.

When the landlord wanted me to leave she gave me a lease for one year. It had been almost three years that we didn’t have a lease. Previously she had said, "No, just pay me from month to month. No contract or anything like that.” But I’d get a receipt. So, well, that's the way it was. 

But suddenly she decided that she was going to give me a lease for one year when she raised the rent. And then one day she told me,”when your [lease] runs out, I am not going to rent to you again,” I told her, “Why? I’m not doing anything wrong?” 

She said “It is just that you have a mess.”

I said, “That’s nothing and I can remove it if you’d like.” I had my little plants in front, she said she didn’t like those plants.

“Well I’ll take them away. But why do you want me to leave?”

So I was trying to make sure there was no problem, right? But that [neighbor] every day would make everything up and then she even put in her window- she put those transparent things that according to her you can see outside, but not inside- to watch me! When I came in, when I went out of my apartment in the back. The courtyard was conjoined, which was the issue. But then, I felt that I didn't even know what to do. So I put a curtain on the laundry door, to see if that way she would leave me alone. 

And yes, yes, for the last time one day the landlord told me, “You know that because of you people are not coming to rent.“

“What's wrong with you?” I told her all the people are waiting for you to rent and you never answer them. And that landlord used to rent to a friend of mine and I knew her mother. One day I went to clean her house and everything and she suddenly turned on me because of the racist neighbor.

And so I told the landlord, “No, you can't tell me to leave because that's your business, it's not mine.” 

And then later the neighbor came and told me, “I know who you are.” 

Teresa laughs - “aye, chihuahua, you know who I am!? Tell me, I don't know myself, I guess?”

And she said,  “You even have a son in jail”  

“What??  What are you talking about? First of all, I don't have to explain myself. But to set this straight, I'll tell you something. First of all, I've never had sons. Men,” I said. 

“I had two daughters. One died and the other lives with me. And where did you pull another son from? And then to boot, that he's in jail. But anyway, suppose that's true. That is not your business - regardless of where he is, he is my son. But forget about it. No, no. Where do you get such a thing? “

I told the landlord. She said, “Oh, yeah, I've heard that too.” My ‘son’.

Well, in the last days [of my lease], there were about two days left. I said, “look, I can't move because they are operating on the veins in my legs and the doctor doesn't want me to make any effort or anything. How am I going to go around moving? Besides, I don't have any money. You just took my money. How do you want me to move?” Because she charged me rent [until the last day].

“Well, that's your problem.”

I started to move things, I packed them. I said, well, let's see how I can do it. At that time, even renting something was difficult, right? And without any money?

And one day, a man arrived that I had called to fix something and he had just entered. [The neighbors] came out of the house and started to say things. The neighbor started to talk to me about things, while the handyman and I were talking. And the neighbor started talking and talking and talking. I told her please, wait for me, I am busy, I told her in English. I told her if you want to talk to me, wait, I am busy. And she kept going on and on and I tell her, “What's wrong with you? Do you not hear me? I'm busy. “

So she didn't listen and went on and on, she got so close to me that I put my hands like this. 

Teresa gestures defensively.

She’s a big woman. She’s a mujerón, very tall and younger than me. And when she started to come closer, I said, “calm down, what's wrong with you?” 

For no reason, she started to say things about my mom, I mean, like offenses, right? Then I said “What's wrong with you?” And she had gotten really close to me.

I stopped her with my hand instead of hitting her or something, and then she slapped me. She hit me really hard and knocked me backwards. I fell on the cement, I hit my head - but I used to have long hair, I had a ponytail [that saved my head]. Her husband came and I thought he was coming to help me. No. And he had a little baby. 

He says to me,  “Why don’t you get out of here?”  in English. 

What's wrong with them? My daughter and my ex-husband had gone to a doctor's appointment, but they canceled it and my daughter said she heard something that wasn't quite right and she called the police. And then the police came. When the police arrived, well then I got up, but my blood pressure dropped. You know, the anger of getting hit. I’d been there all that time with my mouth swollen. And then the policeman arrived and said to me, “Do you have witnesses that you were beaten?” And then I told him of course I did. And then the man who was there with me said,  “I am a witness. I saw everything”. 

And then the police asked me, “Hey, is that how you guys fought?”

I said, “ Listen. I don't fight with anyone in the first place. Secondly, I gave her no motive. And anyways, haven't you seen her? That she’s really tall? Much taller than me and everything.” 

Well, over there they kind of convinced [the other officer].

“Oh, she hit me and I didn't hit her.” The neighbor had been claiming self-defense. But [the neighbor] told the landlord. The neighbor started yelling at the cop. The policeman said, “wait, don’t yell at me. What's going on?”

In all the commotion [the neighbor] was making and the policeman, my blood pressure dropped, I couldn't stay stable. Then another policeman spoke to me, he asked me, “should I call the paramedics?” Well, yes, I feel very bad. I didn’t know if it was the blow, I didn’t know if it was the anger, I don't know what, but my blood pressure dropped and then they took me by ambulance and everything to the hospital.

And then my daughter told the policeman to arrest the neighbor for hitting me. And the policeman asked if I took photos of where I was hit. 

The policeman said, “No, I can’t do anything because if I take her away I would have to take both of them.”

My daughter said, “What do you mean, both of them?”

And I was in the ambulance. How could you take both of us? And [the policeman] didn't take the neighbor? He didn't stop her. Not even remotely. Not even remotely.

Well, when I was in the hospital my daughter went to see me afterwards. And she told me, “You know what the landlord said? She said, "Don't forget the key to the apartment because your lease expires on Friday.””

That's what she told me instead of asking how I was doing. Yes, she said not to forget it. Well, on Friday I went and I told the landlord about my health issues. [The landlord] passed on that she will get the key. I asked “What about my things? They’re inside.” I planned to talk to her. 

And then, when I got there, I barely managed to get them out - I had a big turtle and a man who had liked it for a long time came by and so I gave it to him. I had three other [turtles] because the tank broke. And the landlord said, "Oh, I'll take care of it.” And my ex-husband took my daughter in with her little dog. I kept Seaweed because Seaweed stays with me. 

I just managed to grab my bag, all my clothes and my daughter's clothes. Personal items. And then I gave the landlord the key and I was left without [a home]. My ex-husband has an apartment, but he has a program that requires him to live alone. But he said “I don't care if they take the program away from me, my daughter stays with me.”

I talked to a friend of mine and she said come live with her while I find a place. And I said but I have a little cat - because some people mind. My friend said, “Yes, come with her.” 

Another day I told the landlord that I had left my things there. I called and told her I need my things. She didn't answer. I called her again and the owner didn't answer. I sent her a message. She didn't answer either. No answer. I went for a walk and saw all my stuff already in a dumpster. The landlord had already thrown all my things away. And not all of it, but a lot of it. In the back dumpster there were my good books that I had for my sewing, from my school and everything. 

That’s when I met William and Lieu. We went to court and then [the landlord] brought out lots of pictures. And she wanted to talk to the judge. I asked for a translator. Then the landlord started to talk.

What had happened was the neighbor always said they had a lot of spiders and cockroaches and who knows what else. The landlord never, ever fixed up the apartments, she never fumigated like she should have.

So the neighbor said “I'm going to hire some professionals to fumigate my apartment”. Three weeks later fumigators came, but my neighbor moved and left her furniture there too.

Since that apartment was left abandoned all those animals came to my home. Previously I didn't have a single cockroach, but cockroaches, black widows, everything came. I got stung by a black widow and had to go to a doctor, they operated on my finger. He told me that I had gotten lucky because it was a small one.

I started moving around my stuff but I couldn’t put them in the backyard, because people would steal it. So I was trying to clean but because the landlord asked for the keys I stopped - I couldn’t really move around a lot because everything was packed inside. The landlord wasn’t answering me. I told William that I thought she had done something with my stuff. I had two sewing machines. My table. Everything that was made of wood she destroyed.

I had a dresser, huge, antique. It would take at least two people to lift it. I don’t know how she did it, but she destroyed it. And then William and Thomas and others all went with me to her house. There were like four of us. We knocked and called but she never responded. 

I wanted to talk to her, to get my key so that I could take my stuff out properly. She didn't answer me at all. 

When we went to court, my landlord went with the photos she took of my apartment - of the bugs in my clothes. She was complaining to the judge that my home was a mess, that by law I couldn’t keep my home like this. 

She took pictures of some [clean] egg cartons that I had for a job I was going to do for a lady. 

“She even has egg cartons laying around. I can’t even open the door,” she said to the judge. Exaggerated.

I listened and didn’t speak very much because I didn’t know how to defend myself. 

Then I told the judge, “Look, these things are mine. And it’s messy because the landlord didn't even give me a chance to hire someone to clean. I’ve paid every cent of rent for the last five years and I don’t owe her anything. No one has done anything to her apartment. Yes, it’s messy but there's no damage, nothing is destroyed. She wanted me to fix everything right then and there, but I needed to find the money, find someone who could help me move my stuff. And she, instead of allowing me that, destroyed everything.”

William rescued some things that were in the dump, but we weren’t able to save everything.

So the judge told the landlord, “Teresa shouldn’t have trashed your place, but you should have given her the chance to get her stuff out. So let her back in.”

And then the landlord didn't [follow] anything the judge said, but instead said “you guys have to get here by 8 o’clock to get your stuff, and you’re ungrateful. I gave you the chance to live here for five years.”

She acted like she gave it to me for free, I paid every cent for five years. 

Lieu stayed with me and Wil left but we made a plan to meet up in the morning. Everyone from [the union] came to help me. They all came in their cars, we just didn't have a truck. It was more difficult because there was some metal furniture. 

The landlord had said “I want you here at 8 o’clock. I said, "Are you sure?”

“Yes, I'll be waiting for you.” 

We all went at eight o'clock, everyone in the group was there. And the husband of the one who hit me started to come out of the apartment. And he said that we weren’t supposed to be there, that it was against the law for me to be there, and stated that he was the landlord. I said “don't believe him, that’s not true. He’s just another renter.”

A friend came in a truck to help me and [the husband] came out and started taking pictures of her, saying she wasn’t allowed to be there. [My friend] was just in the street, she wasn’t doing anything. 

He said, "No, you don't have to be here.” 

My friend defended herself. She said, “I can be here because I'm not doing anything wrong. And if you keep taking pictures of me or my license plate it's going to be very bad for you.”

The situation escalated and William told me to get in the car. We all went in the car worried and the neighbors said that [the union members] brought guns.

Teresa chuckles. I don’t know, the neighbors are crazy.

The husband jumped William and tried to hit him, but William stayed firm as he approached his car. William moved the man’s glasses behind his head, he couldn’t hit William because William was taller. 

They called the police and claimed that William hit [the husband]. Four police came and asked what happened. The neighbors weren’t able to hit me because I had stayed in the car and I had warned William to stay away from the husband.

My landlord came and the police started talking to her and my neighbors. The husband was complaining to the police that I was very dirty and shouldn’t be there. The officer was getting mad at him, the neighbor kept talking bad about me, repeating the things that his wife would say to me. He wouldn’t listen to the officer, he kept talking until the cop yelled at him. 

The cop told him, “Shut up, I am going to tell you a few things. What you are doing to this woman is illegal, I don’t know why she hasn’t called us already. This is all illegal. If you keep this up I will arrest you both and have your son taken.”

And then what do you know, the neighbors suddenly went inside, closed the little door and calmed down. The landlord was talking to the other two policemen. They asked her why she wouldn’t let me in.

The landlord said, “Because her lease has expired. We already went to court and they agreed with me that she was dirty. And besides, I am the owner.”

The cop said, "You know what? You are wrong. You may be the owner of this apartment, but that’s her stuff- she’s the owner, not you. So open the door for her.”

The landlord had been denying me, giving me random excuses, telling me that she’d call me at her convenience when she’s able to allow me to grab my stuff. And this cop was telling her that by law as landlord, she was supposed to wait 16 days to allow me to pick up my stuff. Then, if I hadn’t come in that time, the landlord could have done what she wanted. She didn’t even wait a single day.

The landlord opens the door but by that point we are so tired from the heat and the day. The policeman said, "How much time are you going to need?”

We were given an hour, but there was a lot of stuff and we had nothing to lift with. The metal furniture. With an hour we wouldn't even be able to open the door but, oh well. With the heat we were all dehydrated. The owner stood at the door until we gave her the key. I asked about my turtles.

The landlord said, “No no. I don't know where they are.” 

I later realized they had stolen many things from me. I had a cabinet and a closet with a friend's things that she had given me to keep. It was empty. My apartment was all messed up. They had left open my sewing kit and everything, my daughter's things, everything. And in the kitchen there was nothing. My refrigerator was missing, my dryer was gone, my washing machine, the dishes. All rifled through, all that stuff. There was nothing in the living room. There was nothing. And there used to be furniture there. So I asked her what she did with all my stuff.

“And my books?”

“I threw it away,” the landlord said. 

“So you threw them away?”

“Yes, I threw everything away. I did.” 

“I can't believe you threw my stuff away. New stuff.”

“Well, they weren't any good, I threw them away in their boxes and everything.”

My daughter said, “Mom, why don't you sue her? You have to sue her. She destroyed your stuff. She destroyed our stuff, and then they stole a lot of stuff. And besides, you never sued the woman that hit you.”

I told her I don’t know. With people that act like this for no reason, can you imagine if I sued them? They might set our apartment on fire. 

And still to this day my daughter encourages me to sue them, that I can’t let the lady who hit me get away with it. I have thought about it a lot. And William helped me a lot. And what helped me a lot was the support I received from the union.

When my daughter saw that we were left without a home, she cried and asked if we were going to be homeless. 

I told her, “No mija, your father is going to help you.”

But you know as a mother, seeing my daughter's tears, they shattered me. On top of that, I saw that all my things had been destroyed. When the pandemic hit they gave us some money and I had invested it in buying things for my sewing business, and to cut hair. I had equipment to groom puppies, because I know how to do that too. And even the new tables that I had bought and everything was taken from me. There's nothing left. I had a box with all my hair cutting equipment in it. She tossed it, everything, everything. I had so little time to move out my stuff I didn’t have a chance to see where the landlord had hidden it.