CC no longer has bedbugs,

and Rendahl has stopped trying to evict him for bogus reasons,

at least for now!

We won our first fight. Of course, Rendahl, everyones favorite slumlord, remains bent on demonstrating her power over her tenants and will surely continue the same practices as before, so, let us spread word of the victory to the other tenants, and see if any more want to school this parasite on basic respect!

Our first picket at Aaran’s Walk on January 16th made one thing clear: Jennifer Rhendahl does not consider herself a friend to her tenants or the surrounding community. We held signs and set up a large banner saying “STAND UP AGAINST SLUMLORDS” in full view of passers-by, including incoming residents and prospective buyers. We felt an overwhelming degree of support: constant honking from cars, curious people pulling over to talk to us, pedestrians and residents telling us their stories and thanking us, and Aaran’s Walk tenants offering time and resources, energized and no longer feeling helpless in their struggle against their landlord and bully. The owner of a nearby apartment complex even stopped by to learn about the situation and offer his help.

Quite a few members of the community expressed a sense of relief that people have finally started to take action. The grievances they expressed to us had many common themes, and everyone identified with CC’s struggle. Many enthusiastically joined our picket and expressed rage at the fiefdom-like conditions they live under.

When Jennifer Rendahl learned of the ruckus, she came outside to make everyone go away. She probably doesn’t know how to deal with situations in which people don’t fear her: and now she saw the entire community demonstrating their opposition to her position in their lives. She knows that we pose a powerful threat to her business, because we do.

(In fact, recently, while she toured a potential tenant through some apartments, someone from TSOL approached them and told CC’s story. The prospective tenant signed our petition and told Jennifer that he would not rent from her.)

We will escalate until she agrees to our modest demand, which, really, amounts to nothing more than obeying the law. We demand that she stop trying to evict CC and that she own the responsibility of dealing with the bedbugs.

So, Rendahl responded by calling the Sheriff, who knows her all too well, since she uses the police frequently as part of her intimidation routine.

But the police found nothing illegal about our behaviors, rendering Rendahl powerless to stop us.

… To stop us from (1) spreading information and forcing a dialogue about her abuses, and (2) exposing her as a parasite to the community. She takes, she hurts, and she does not deserve her position. Tenants have a right to control their own lives.

Intoxicated by the power associated with private property ownership, Rendahl assumes total authority over her tenants. She bullies her residents and TSOL in whatever manner suits her fancy.

She’s had things go her way consistently … until now. She probably hasn’t bothered to respect anyone other than herself in 10 years, so she has a learning curve ahead of her.

Her life of privilege, it seems, has prevented her from becoming an adult.

Her sadistic nature really makes itself known to those familiar with her pattern of abuse. She enjoys what she does, and so far, she has relied on the fact that her tenants feel helpless to do anything about it. It seems as if she wants nothing less than to destroy the dignity and sense of autonomy in people she feels more important than.

Until now, she has faced no consequences for her ongoing illegal and immoral behavior.

Again, we will continue to escalate. It may or may not take a while to chip away at her delusional sense of power. Regardless, we won’t stop until she does the right thing, and complies with the demand CC, the tenants, and TSOL have given her.

On Wednesday, January 16th, the community made their position clear.

Landlords and bosses, beware! The working class can only take your shit for so long!

WMNF News: New Activist Movement In Tampa Is Targeting Slumlords

A group of activists is targeting slumlords in Tampa. Members of the Tampa Solidarity Network warned passing traffic not to rent from a USF-area apartment complex during a protest yesterday.

Two activists held a giant banner in front of Aaran’s Walk Condominiums calling Jennifer Rendahl a slumlord. Some drivers passing by honked in appreciation. Others slowed their cars to ask why. Protester Jake Vigness told them the complex’s management headed up by Rendahl enforced silly rules and often evicted residents illegally if they broke any of them.

“Well, for instance – just arbitrary rules like, children under 18 can’t be outside. If people have cell phones in the parking lot she’ll go out and talk to them and tell them you can’t be on your phone out here in the parking lot. If you have visitors over there’s a lot of rules about parking and about whether or not you can come outside and greet them. Just a lot of really strange stuff like that that we’ve heard of. We’ve heard story after story after story. It’s completely absurd.

And Carlton Williams is living in a bed bug infested unit in Aaran’s Walk. Williams reported the problem to the landlord. According to Williams, she sent a pest control company to his apartment to check it out, but the exterminator wouldn’t answer any of his questions. The landlord later told Williams that he needed to move out of his apartment for 4-6 weeks while the problem was fixed. Williams said he tried to find a place to stay, but didn’t have anywhere to go.

“I asked my friend who I know, the gentleman she claimed brought the bed bugs. I even asked my family. My family. My family [couldn’t] help because they have kids and I’m not going to move the little kids out of their room because the little kids got to stay so I’m going to let them stay in their home because that’s where they need to stay at. Last time I had termites at my house, my last landlord put is in, like, a motel.”

But the landlord didn’t do that. She wouldn’t comment for this story under advice of her attorney. Williams started asking people whether or not treating bed bugs should take so long. They all told him no. So Williams refused to leave. Instead, Rendahl offered to let him out of his lease and pay him $500 to leave.

“I don’t think I deserve this. Treat them before they mess up my furniture, my bed, my speakers, getting all in my clothes – stuff like that. The only thing she told me was I have to vacate the apartment for six weeks.”

Members of the Tampa Solidarity Network doubt an exterminator would need six weeks to treat bed bugs. Nick, one of the protesters who asked that his last name not be used, said he’s had bed bugs before so he knew the landlord’s claim was bogus.

“All we had to do leave the house or the apartment for four hours while the guy was there treating and he did that once a month – and he did that for – oh no, he did that twice a month, sorry – and it ended up costing us, all together, $175 for him to treat our bed bugs.”

Nick said the group called the company who did the estimate on the apartment’s pest problem and they were told even bad cases of bed bugs shouldn’t take that long.

“We’ve also called two other pest control agencies to see what their estimates were. One of them laughed at the idea of having to move out for 4-6 weeks and the other one said at most you’d have to leave for two days if we tented the whole building.”

WMNF also asked three local pest control specialists if treating bed bugs could ever take that long and they all said no. Ivan Lenoir, a renter’s rights attorney said even if it did, it’s the landlord’s responsibility to make sure the tenant has a place to stay.

“If the landlord cannot fix the problem within seven days then the landlord must either, A – give the tenant a rent reduction or B – provide the tenant some kind of monetary compensation so they may find somewhere else to live during this period in time that they are displaced from their home.”

Lenoir added that Williams’ refusal to leave isn’t necessarily a reason for the landlord to evict him.

“It does give her a reason not to fix the problem because what she can say is, ‘I’ve received professional advice that you must vacate the premise in order to fix the bug problem – you’ve refused to vacate…’ I don’t think that’s a reason to necessarily evict, but it’s certainly a reason to not fix the problem.”

Williams spoke to an attorney about his situation, too, and was told basically the same thing. So Williams asked the landlord if he could stay in one of the complex’s vacant units while his was being treated.

“I did and she said told me she’s not going to put me in another vacant apartment because she know I probably would have put bed bugs in the other apartment.”

The Tampa Solidarity Network is a spin off of a similar group in Seattle that started in 2008. Their goal is to put numbers behind causes. Williams’s bed bug problem is their first effort, but Jake Vigness, one of the group’s organizers, said they want to help others in similar situations.

“Well, the thing is, so often in our daily lives we deal with authority figures who are able to basically get away with abusing their power and their position and a lot of times we really internalize that and we always ask what have we done wrong first. And that’s good – it’s good to have personal responsibility, but we really have to answer issues collectively. So, the idea behind the Tampa Solidarity Network is basically to get people to direct action campaigns to get people to basically stand up for their rights and to get some control over their lives.”

The group also wants to target bad bosses.

“I know something seems simple, like it’s not, like a big cause like save the earth or whatever, but I think that for the poor and the disenfranchised, they are a cause. You know, your life is a cause. Even these little things should be stood up for. People having control of their lives is something that’s important – I think it’s fundamental to democracy.”

The group’s website has more information about what’s happening with Carlton Williams and other direct actions.

On Friday, January 11th, Jennifer Rendahl retaliated against CC and TSOL organizers trying to talk to neighbors by kicking the organizers off the property. On Saturday, January 12th, the following day, she posted a letter on everyone’s door in the complex, spreading her usual distortions. We’ve scanned the letter, and it’s posted below for folks to look over, but we’d like to highlight some of her falsifications.

First of all, CC does not have a friend with bedbugs, nor did CC ever tell a maintenance worker or pest control worker that such was the case. CC does have a friend who works maintenance at a hotel. For Rendahl to twist this into a claim that CC’s friend was responsible for bringing bedbugs speaks for itself.

Secondly, the “Terminex” worker never spoke directly to CC, and in fact refused to give him a business card. Furthermore, as anyone who has ever dealt with bedbugs knows, in no scenario would a tenant be forced to leave for 4-6 weeks to treat for the pests. We called Terminex, who said they had never heard of forcing tenants to vacate for 4-6 weeks, even in extreme cases. This is an obvious attempt to scare CC out of his apartment, and then keep him out. In fact, we called 2 other pest services, who corroborated Terminex by saying that in most cases tenants are merely required to leave for the duration of the treatment (4 hours). In fact, the total cost of treating for the pests is likely to be between $175-$250 over a period of several months! That’s at most, about half the rent CC pays every month.

Rendahl also claims that CC and TSOL organizers are going to spread bedbugs by talking to neighbors in their doorways. The absurdity of this accusation doesn’t merit comment.

Besides this, Rendahl get’s the chronology horribly wrong, but we know it must be hard to keep track of the day and time when you’re counting all the deposits you’ve stolen, the $400 pet deposits you’ve extracted, and trying to keep track of your 14 camera feeds that spy on your “residents.”

We’ll make the demand clear for her one more time: LET CC STAY. DROP ALL ATTEMPTS TO EVICT HIM. BEGIN TREATING THE BED BUG INFESTATION IMMEDIATELY.

Download (PDF, 67KB)

On December 18, 2012, Carlton Williams, a resident at Aaran’s Walk apartments, informed Jennifer Rendahl, property owner and manager, that bedbugs had infested his apartment. Ms. Rendahl sent a maintenance worker to the unit. The worker took a quick look, told the tenant he’d have to find lodging during the extermination process and left.

Until Hillsborough County Code Enforcement contacted her more than 2 weeks later, Ms. Rendahl had not once contacted Mr. Williams nor had she taken any further action. She had, however, kept busy telling other residents to avoid contact with Mr. Williams, clearly attempting to isolate him and overtly blaming him for the infestation of the unit.

The Tampa Solidarity Network has united with Mr. Williams (“CC” to his friends) to demand justice.

On Thursday, January 3, CC and the Tampa Solidarity Network delivered a letter to Ms. Rendahl demanding that she exterminate the begbugs and provide alternative lodging as necessary. Typically, residents do not need to evacuate the premises for bedbug extermination, but Ms. Rendahl retaliated to our extermination demand by telling CC to vacate the premises for 6 weeks, at his own expense, and that he must make arrangements by January 31st or she will evict him.

On Thursday, January 10, after several days of flyering around the community to share CC’s story, CC found a ‘notice of non-compliance’ on his door. Demanding that he vacate the premises within 7 days, to comply with a section in the lease that provides the landlord the right to terminate the lease at any point if the tenant refuses to vacate an uninhabitable apartment, Ms. Rendahl cited a ‘licensed pest control agency’ as the authority on the necessity to vacate for 4-6 weeks to treat for bedbugs. The pest control agency in question did not identify itself to CC, or leave a business card. Further, Florida law states that if a landlord does order a tenant to vacate the premises because of bedbugs, the duration shall not exceed 4 days.

We demand that Jennifer Rendahl either put CC up for the four days that she wants him gone, or treat for the bedbugs while he remains in the unit, something commonly done with bedbugs.

CC has paid his rent consistently on-time during the year he has lived at Aaran’s Walk. Ms. Rendahl at first offered and then denied CC the downstairs living situation he needed for his health and just recently told him that she denied a new carpet upon moving in because his “income was too low.”

For 32 years, CC had maintained at least one full-time public job until health issues forced him to retire from USF Tampa in 2010. A dedicated and beloved custodian for all those years, his coworkers and the USF Staff Senate honored him with a Quiet Quality Award in 2008, the same year USF privatized the SunDome, eliminating his second job. The attendant cut in pay forced CC to move to an insecure neighborhood where people robbed and beat him, resulting in deteriorating health and disabling bouts of vertigo. As CC’s health problems persisted, coworkers and associates from across campus donated more sick leave than he had the ability to use, testament to the respect and affection he has become accustomed to experiencing.

CC is a devoted father to a 15-year-old daughter, Diamond, and a well-known figure around USF’s Tampa campus where he is a regular at sporting events.

Download (PDF, 135KB)

Jennifer Rendahl continues to intimidate tenants, harass organizers

Two TSOL participants got kicked off the property last night. Here’s their story:

We only got to talk to one resident before Rendahl came along loaded for bear and calling the Sheriff. After we left, she began dropping in on residents, telling them that CC and his friends would bring bedbugs into their apartments.”

When we were talking to a tenant in her doorway she would stand just around the corner and kind of spy on us. She’s also removed every single flyer we put up.

She had a speech about how she’s the one doing things legally

Rendahl also went to CC’s apt. after we left, covering the peep hole so he couldn’t see her. CC didn’t open the door but heard her ranting about him, his friends and the bedbugs as she walked away. He is going to have his camera ready next time she shows up.