Rocket is our 15-year-old Carolina Dog. For the last three and a half years (24 years in dog years) he has been losing his sight. Dogs don’t experience time like humans, so imagine growing more and more blind for 24 years, but able to get around because a familiar environment had been set up for you.
You know where things are and consistent routines mean you know what to do.
Until everything changes.
You’re thrust into a new environment, completely different and packed full from the forced move into a strange and unfamiliar space. You get stuck under a couch, frightened, unable to move, whimpering for help for hours.
That was Rocket’s experience of a forced move after good faith lease renewal negotiations following a 5 year perfect payment history. But I’d had a few instances of bumping horns with the property management staff who kept misrepresenting tenant law in an apparent attempt to intimidate us into giving up our rights (We didn’t. And still haven’t. And won’t) . Then we asked for a few safety measures in an email - radical things like windows we could actually use.
6 days later came the Notice to Vacate. Unsigned. Attached to a email with no sender attribution or body text. 6 days later we got another NTV, this time from an employee of the property management company who wrote “the owner wants to do renovations.”
Except they immediately listed and started showing the property in its current condition. Still, we moved out. In a heat wave with 2 days around 114 heat index. Pressed for time and getting by with almost no sleep for most of a week. We were collapsing from exhaustion. But we left.
Then the deposit didn’t show up in 30 days so we asked and were told it was mailed in time, with proof presented as a scan of something we were told was a postmark. However, the file’s own system metadata - specifically an auto-generated timestamp in the filename - revealed the document was created eight days after the alleged mailing date, well past the statutory deadline for the deposit’s return, and just minutes before it was emailed to us.
Over 6 weeks after we moved, we found they had been advertising the property with images of us, starting over 30 days before we moved. With no consent. These images of us and our belongings included some in private spaces like our bedroom and bathrooms. They had been taken under what we allege to be false pretenses. Did I mention they were heavily watermarked with their company's branding? That created the false impression of a commercial endorsement for the very company we are now suing
In addition to those 15-16 still image shots in those ads, they shot a virtual tour after telling Meaghan they would use AI to remove us and our belongings. This virtual tour included imagery of my company branding and presented to the world the indignity of our older dog Rocket in diapers - also for months before we even knew about it.
Between the still image ads and virtual tour, we’ve identified 23 sites so far, and counting. The listing attribution fingerprints point to widespread syndicated distribution of our private images through AppFolio and ShowMojo, who claims over 50 sites downstream. Sites like Zillow, Trulia, and Realtor.com.
And it made us feel “special” I guess, in that we have yet to see even one other property ad by this company with tenants and their belongings depicted. This selective use of our images, and no other tenants’, raises serious questions about retaliatory intent.
We might be the only tenants(involuntarily) featured in their ads, but it appears we weren’t the first to have this flavor of experience with this company in general.
A review on Indeed.com by an alleged former employee of theirs from about 7 years ago stated “they made me feel my job was to trick residents so the company could make more money.” I promise I am not making this up. I wish I was. There are many with similar sentiments from tenants and vendors as well.
And we have learned that tactics of tenant exploitation don’t stop once you stand up for yourself and enter the justice system for accountability pro se - representing yourself. Read how Big Law attorneys hired by landlords treat self represented tenants and you can make up your own mind. Trust me, you'll want to see that. I've brought the goods to you,..by filing their emails with the court as an exhibit , which means they are now public record and you can read them here.
It’s a pattern. Looking at the Housing Crisis numbers, it is clearly systemic. So needs a systemic solution because it isn’t just about us, it’s about all of us.
This could be any of us - anyone renting a home who simply demands fairness, dignity, and respect. And doesn’t back down to power plays.
This has motivated us to make a difference. We want everyone to have the secure shelter necessary to live with human dignity.
And this is why we are; our lawsuit and what led to it,
to bring needed transparency to the system,and studying housing security and justice as a system, to map it out for others as well asfinding the leverage points for positive change, and make it a....Housing Justice Audit.