On November 14, 2023, Liz Ruvalcaba was served with a summons and complaint notifying her that a lawsuit had been filed by her landlord to evict her from her home. It didn’t come as a shock. One week earlier, Ruvalcaba had returned home to find her rent checks for September and October rolled up and wedged under her doorknob, still in the envelopes in which she had delivered them to her property manager. “You could see [the manager] had opened the envelopes and then just put the checks back inside,” Ruvalcaba told Jacobin. “Of course, I knew that if they’re refusing to accept the rent, they’re getting ready to do something. And sure enough, a week went by and I received the documents from the court.” The summons and complaint specified that she was being evicted for nonpayment of rent.

In August, Ruvalcaba, who lives with her two adult children, was changing jobs. The hiring process for her new job took over a month, causing her to fall behind on rent. When she ultimately did pay rent, however, the property manager didn’t indicate that there was any issue. “She never contacted me, she never called me, she never sent me a text. No letter, no notice, no red flags.” But Ruvalcaba, who has lived in her eighteen-unit rent-stabilized building in the West Los Angeles area for twenty-nine years, knew the landlord wanted long-term tenants like her to move out.

Ruvalcaba has personally received multiple “cash-for-keys” offers, and says that over the years the landlord has tried to evict several of her neighbors with older leases. California’s 1995 Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act allows landlords to reset rents to market rate when a tenant vacates a rent-stabilized unit, effectively incentivizing the displacement of long-term tenants like Ruvalcaba. The landlord has also withheld maintenance and refused to pay for things like plumbing repairs and mold remediation — common practices pursued by landlords seeking to force tenants to “self-evict.” And when Ruvalcaba inquired about getting an additional parking space, she says, the property manager declined the request because she “didn’t pay as much rent as the new tenants.”