The Oregonian | By Aimee Green | September 24, 2018
A Portland rental management company has agreed to pay $105,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a former tenant who claimed she endured deplorable living conditions that included hypodermic needles, rats and overflowing garbage at her Southeast Portland apartment complex.
Aleina Langford’s attorney said to add insult to injury, A&G Rental Management had sent a collection agency after her seeking more than $1,500 in what she said were bogus charges. One of those included a window that she said was broken after she moved out.
But in a highly unusual case, the property management company has agreed to pay Langford the six-figure settlement instead of forcing her to pay the $1,500. The case had been scheduled to go to trial next week in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
Langford’s attorney, Michael Fuller, said such big wins by tenants are rare enough that he’s heard of only two other tenant-landlord lawsuits in Portland in which landlords have ended up paying more than $100,000. In both those cases, the former tenants had claimed they were physically injured — one by tearing his meniscus after plunging through rotting wood and the other by ingesting high levels of lead on the property.
In contrast, Langford — then a 40-year-old single mother of two — was suing purely for emotional harm, Fuller said.
“She didn’t fall through a walkway, and she didn’t get poisoned by lead,” Fuller said. “This was a case where she was treated like it didn’t matter and all of her concerns were ignored.”
A woman who answered the phone at A&G Rental Management said she wasn’t knowledgeable enough about the case to comment but left a message for other employees. The message wasn’t immediately returned Monday.
Langford and other tenants of the apartments at Southeast 119th Avenue and Ash Street had made headlines in September 2016 after they complained publicly about a 45 percent increase in rent. For Langford, that meant her monthly rent jumped from $825 to $1,200.
The group circulated fliers chastising the man they identified as the new owner of the company that recently bought the Ash Street Properties apartment complex. The fliers featured a photo of Langford’s young son, standing outside the family’s apartment and holding a sign that read: “My mom can’t afford $1200 a month. She worries everyday. Someone was shot right here.” A hand-sketched arrow on the sign points to small hole in the porch.
Although tenants complained, the rent increase was legal at the time. In February 2017, the Portland City Council passed a requirement calling for most landlords to pay $2,900 to $4,500 to renters whom they evict without cause or who must relocate because they can’t afford annual rent increases of 10 percent or more.
That city law came too late to help Langford with her costs.
Langford told The Oregonian/OregonLive that it was an uphill fight against the management company from the beginning, and she felt powerless at times.
“If you complain about something like I did throughout your whole tenancy and nothing happens, you just feel disheartened,” Langford said.
Langford said she came to accept the living conditions, because rents are high in Portland and she didn’t think she would find a cheaper, better place to live. Then the rent hike came, and she moved.
She said because she didn’t have thousands of dollars to pay an attorney, she went to Legal Aid of Oregon for help. Legal Aid ultimately referred her to Fuller, who took her case on contingency, she said.
“I’m just relieved that it’s all over, and I’m not the one paying,” Langford said.
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2018/09/portland_tenant_wins_105k_sett.html
