In what is sure to be a treasure trove of entertaining follow-up posts, the City of San Francisco recently filed a lawsuit against local landlord Anna Kihagi, for allgedly waging “a war of harassment, intimidation, and retaliation using unlawful, unfair and fraudulent practices” designed to force out long term tenants, “to make room for new tenants who pay market rent,” in defiance of “numerous state and local laws protecting these tenants and capping rents”
As has historically occurred in a soaring market, the number of fault-based evictions has skyrocketed in recent years, as the value of market rent exceeds legal transactional costs. And in contrast to landlords who at least operate under the pretext of grievous lease violations – like hanging laundry out to dry – Ms. Kihagi is accused of “interrupting mail service, interrupting gas, electric, water, and cable service, backdating correspondence and notices, failing and refusing to cash rent checks, falsely claiming that rent payments were untimely, violating tenant privacy, sending harassing text messages, abusing the landlord’s right of access by failing to give the required notice before entering, even yelling and screaming at tenants.”
Not to be outdone, Kihagi is suing the City for “targeting her in part because she is a female, African American immigrant who owns property”.
