“Don’t Rent” campaign builds despite landlord violence

Read this in Spanish.

It has been over four months since Danica walked into NW Apartments’ offices with a crowd of supporters and calmly handed them a letter demanding that they return her stolen money. Since that time hundreds of current and prospective renters have not only heard her story, but also learned about NW Apartments’ broader pattern of abuse against other current and former tenants. Most recently, Danica and other members of SeaSol could be found outside of one of NW Apartments’ more visible buildings on Capitol Hill, the Casa Del Rey, handing out festive “slumlordwarning.com” balloons and peanut butter “no-slumlord” cookies to tenants and passers by. The popular support was overwhelming and dozens of people took the “Do Not Rent from NW Apartments” pledge bringing the total count up to–who knows how many.

So, how is NW Apartments responding to these sorts of peaceful demonstrations? They are proudly demonstrating their complete lack of professionalism at every opportunity. The property manager at Danica’s old building, the Manchester Arms, has been filling up pitchers of water and dumping them on SeaSol members from the safety of his balcony. If only NW Apartments was equally dedicated to keeping water OUT of their tenant’s apartments maybe this whole situation could have been avoided! Needless to say, the posters continued to go up despite his immature antics (incidentally, dumping water on people is considered assault, and is an arrestable offense) and other tenants leaned out their windows to express their support for us and apologize on behalf of their property manager. More concerning are the violent threats from an employee at another NW Apartments building, the Tuscany. Here a NW Properties employee saw a SeaSol member putting up posters and threatened that he would “fuck them up” if he catches them again.

We will not be intimidated by NW Apartments. While we do not enjoy being threatened and attacked, it does make it clearer than ever to us as well as to those we are trying to reach just what kind of company we’re dealing with. We will continue to do everything within our power to spread the word about NW Apartments’ dubious business practices and thuggish behavior until they agree to do right by Danica.