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What does renter harassment
look like?
The techniques that are used to harass and expel renters vary based on locale and applicable law. The following kinds of events are often seen in cases of renter harassment. Note that anonymity and uncertainty or even confusion are major components of the techniques that are used to move you out of your home. Here is a short list. For a more detailed discussion of the tools of the trade and the countermeasures that renters have used, see Tools of the Trade. By all means, write us if you know of additional effective strategies tenants can use to keep their homes.

• Complaints to your landlord.

• Complaints to Parking Enforcement about your vehicles.
  
• Complaints to the police.
• Intimidation.
  
• Malicious gossip.
• Slander.
• Threats.

There are also legal ways you can be moved out. For example, in some cases where renter harassment does not work, developers or real estate speculators may simply attempt to pressure your landlord into selling the property that is your home. Complaints to your landlord, to Parking Enforcement, and to police can be a way to soften your landlords up for a sale. In effect, complaints to your landlords may be a tactic in which they are wearied and harassed into selling a house they would rather keep. Depending on the circumstances at play, improper interference of a third party in a contract between landlord and tenant may constitute a claim for damages on the grounds of tortious interference.

Renter harassment attempts to create discomfort, to make you uncomfortable in your home. It is often an attempt to intimidate, even to frighten you out of your home.
Harassment expresses dynamics of power in a situation in which the harasser asserts his power over others he or she perceives as weak or vulnerable. Those who use harassment to gain their ends in the community often seem to believe, or at least to justify their wrongdoing based on the belief, that renters are part of an underclass not deserving of the rights enjoyed by those whose home is mediated by mortgage agreement.

Tools of the Trade

Constant complaints to the landlord. Make no mistake, chronic complaints are  intended to have an effect on your relationship with your landlord, in other words, on your tenancy. Constant complaints can also be a means of attempting to control you through threatening your relationship with your landlord, leveraging your landlord's desire to please the neighbors or, in some cases, wearying or harassing your landlords into tacit cooperation in your harassment or in, certain markets, into selling the house and forcing you to leave.

Countermeasures

Know your rights.
Countermeasure: Document it.

Constant complaints to Parking Enforcement. Complaints to Parking Enforcement in the many cities that accept them is a common and effective tool used by spiteful neighbors as well as by any and all contractors and realtors who seek to profit off of new development in or gentrification of a neighborhood.

Document it.

• Public disclosure requests. If your locale has a public disclosure request process, make requests for disclosure of the complaints, including complainant names, if you can get them. Public documents showing the names of your harassers may be your best evidence should you intend to fight the harassment. Even if you cannot get the names, a large volume of complaints against the same plate numbers of vehicles that are legally parked goes a long way towards demonstrating that you are living in a state of harassment.
• Photography. Photography, both still image and video from a security DVR, can be useful tools to document each event if they are dated in a manner that is likely to be acceptable in a court of law. If your tires are constantly chalked and you believe you are being targeted, photograph the marks.

Complain.

• Write letters to local and regional officials. Depending on how your city is governed and what politics are in play, consider writing the mayor, the city council, civil rights officials, the city attorney, Parking Enforcement, and so on,  If you track the dates when your tires are chalked or  your car is red-tagged or otherwise marked to warn that towing is imminent, include the dates of the actions taken against you in the complaints.

Check your tires. If you are going to show a pattern of harassment you should probably check your tires every day and check to ensure you understand the parameters on how the marks are made. Some Parking Enforcement officers seem to prefer to hide their marks, for example, on rear tires. Note that this is a practice you should probably challenge since it seems intended to trick rather than to simply track or warn. There's no good reason for a municipality to try to trick its citizens and it's arguably unethical.
Establish a relationship with Parking Enforcement. If you are working with a Parking Enforcement unit in a city that does not tolerate city services being used to harass and you suspect that those harassing you are making the marks themselves, call them to verify that the marks were made in response to a complaint or check any documents you've received based on your public disclosure requests to determine which marks were directly tied to documented complaints from those outside of the Parking Enforcement department. Do not discount the possibility of complaints made internally in a manner that is hidden, especially if your neighborhood includes city employees or people with connections to city administration.

Complaints to the police about things you do that are not illegal, especially when no one seems to complain when others do them. Playing music within the limits of local codes is a common example here. Another might be attempting to draw the police into the situation by giving some extra attention to your parking practices, even in neighborhoods where home owners enjoy a more laissez-faire (relaxed) approach to enforcement. You should not be subject to a double-standard that is not supported by law.

Know your rights.
You'll need to know your rights before you can protect them. What rights you have depend on any written lease that exists between your landlord and yourself. For example, signing some rental agreements in some places may constitute agreement to park only in a designated private zone. The terms of rental agreements are often mediated by local law, however. For example, in some cities any clause of your agreement that is not in accord with local law is invalid.  In addition, some cities enforce codes in addition to state law. For these reasons, to assure that you're protecting yourself and advocating for yourself to the fullest extent possible, learn what rights you have under the following:

• Your rental agreement.
• City codes, if any.
• County codes.
• State codes.

If you're fortunate, you are in a city where your landlord is required to distribute written information about tenants' rights and you have a tenants' rights organization that can help to clarify them in relation to the terms of your rental agreement.
Document the complaints.

Provocation. For some people, renter harassment is a way of doing business and they clear properties of renters the same way they clear properties of trees. If people like this are harassing you and you resist, you may need to watch out for some dirty tricks. Provocation is a technique that political and social activists are often familiar with but it's not a tactic that law-abiding renters expect so it tends to be confusing and difficult to detect. Renters who face provocation strategies must be able to critically evaluate what is happening and to make good judgments about how to document the situation and avoid giving harassers the reaction they seek.

Don't fall for it. Don't engage. Those harassing you could be photographing your reaction and even calling the police in hopes that you'll lose it and cause a "disturbance," something that can lead to the city dubbing your residence a "nuisance house." If your home is deemed to be a "nuisance house," you will likely be kicked out of it and your landlords prohibited from renting it for some period of time, something that could force the owners to sell. In cases where you have been harassed because neighbors are interested in an adverse possession lawsuit or because real estate speculators want to build on the land, labeling your home as a "nuisance" means that you and your landlord both lose.
Photography is very useful in this situation. There are times when carrying a camera is a great deterrent, even if you don't get a useful shot. Provocation can be sort of like a "speak softly and carry a big stick" Teddy Roosevelt tactic. The camera is your stick. Just be sure you understand privacy laws and how they affect your use of the camera.

Note that this is an especially dirty tactic in cases where you are under great strain from enduring harassment in your legal home for months and even years. It can be difficult to keep control over the strong emotions that anyone would have in such a situation, but your keeping your home requires that you keep your composure and stay in control. If you suspect you are being provoked, leave the situation. You can call the police later on. This is also a situation in which it's good to have cameras on your property, though those who use provocation usually don't if they cannot stay outside the range of the cameras. Besides, in these situations, it's less the provocation that matters than your response to it. Make sure you don't give them anything they can use against you.