Three kids’ bicycles lean on their kickstands outside a Northwest Reno apartment on a sunny spring afternoon. Neatly arranged from biggest to smallest, the order makes them look like a multi-colored staircase with handlebars and pedals.

Tenant Stephanie Lee looks at the tallest of the bunch, a bike sporting darker, aggressive patterns compared to the soft pastels on the other two.

“I’ll be upgrading my eldest son’s bicycle to a bigger one,” the 30-year-old said.

Moments later, a wistful smile flashes across Lee’s face. Kids grow up so fast, said the mother of three young children.

Recently, however, Lee found herself facing a growth spurt of a different kind.

A month ago, Lee received a letter from her landlord. The rent for her two-bedroom, one-bath apartment was going from $600 to $850 — a 42 percent increase.

For Lee, that $250 difference changes her family’s life completely.

“Being a single mom with one income and three kids, it’s a pretty big hit,” Lee said.

Most likely, she will need to get another job.

“It’s either just deal with this rent increase, work two jobs and not see my kids or become homeless and not have a place to live because of this housing market,” Lee said. “It’s a vicious, vicious cycle.”

It's harder than ever to make rent in Reno-Sparks

Steep rent spikes and record rents. A surge in no-cause evictions. Insufficient tenant protections.

These are the realities faced by tenants in one of the toughest rental markets in the nation as a sharp increase in housing demand continues to tighten its grip on the Biggest Little City, a Reno Gazette Journal investigation found.

Reno-Sparks’ most vulnerable populations are especially feeling squeezed, according to interviews with the RGJ. These include seniors, lower-income earners and the poor, who find themselves grappling with the highest rents ever seen in the area’s history.

Just six years ago, the average rent in the greater Reno metro area was $822 per month, according to data from real estate consulting firm Johnson Perkins Griffin. Since then, the average rent skyrocketed to $1,316 in the first quarter of 2019, just a few dollars below the record set last year.

That's a jump of 42% when adjusted for inflation.

Rising rents are not the only issue that area tenants are struggling with.

From 2012 to 2017, the number of no-cause evictions — when a renter with no lease is asked to leave for no reason — spiked by 300%, according to Washoe County records obtained by the Reno Gazette Journal.

Finding a place to stay is especially difficult for extremely low-income households.

For every 100 extremely low-income renters in the Reno area, there are only 21 affordable rental homes available to them, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition's Gap Report.

That puts Reno among the worst in the nation, where the average is 37 affordable rentals for every 100 extremely low-income renters. Overall, there are 10,598 more extremely low-income renter households in Reno than there are available rental units that they can afford.

With high rents and few affordable options, requests for assistance from agencies that help low-income residents are surging. With nearly 3,000 households asking for help, the Reno Housing Authority was forced to close its waiting list to new applicants, said Brent Boynton, community outreach coordinator.

“If you or I have a problem with paying an extra $200 each month, just think of someone who’s living paycheck to paycheck,” Boynton said. “With the increased demand for housing, there is more pressure faced by people at the bottom of the economic ladder.”

Reno recovered — and then it spiked

The arrival of Tesla, Switch and a host of other companies fueled Reno’s economic recovery after the worst recession in state history.

It also led to an influx of people eager to fill those new jobs and a corresponding increase in housing demand.

As Reno home prices hit record highs beyond what the median income can afford, more residents are turning to apartments. Supply, however, lags behind the growing pace of demand.

As a result, many renters are feeling the pinch as lower vacancies — mostly below 3 percent since 2015 — push rent upwards and test the limits of what the market can bear.

In just the last three years:

Reno opened 2016 by ranking among the top three metro areas for rent increases in the United States, according to apartment search company Abodo.

The Biggest Little City ended 2017 with the fourth highest rent increase in the nation.

Reno-Sparks closed 2018 by posting an average rent of $1,292 in the fourth quarter. The number is up by $112 or 9% from the fourth quarter of 2017.

'What is this, the Bay Area?'

In some cases, the rent increases go far beyond the average.

William Soberanis, who shares a rental with three roommates, saw rent rise last year by nearly 55 percent from $1,100 to $1,600.

“I moved to Reno in 2015 after a divorce because rent was reasonable and I had family out here,” Soberanis said. “Now I don’t know how much longer I can stay in Reno because of the price increases.”

While Soberanis loves his job as a bus driver for the Washoe County School District, his salary of just under $14 an hour is nowhere near enough to afford rent without having roommates, much less a mortgage for a median home.

Soberanis says it feels weird to be 36 years old and still live with roommates. The increase in housing costs reminds Soberanis of another place he used to live.

“What is this, the Bay Area now?” Soberanis said. “Right now, I feel like I’m being forced to either move away from my family or be in a living situation where I need to have three other roommates.”

One renter spoke out — then her neighbor lost his home

One common fear echoed by renters who talked to the Reno Gazette Journal was getting a no-cause eviction.

In February, a fourplex on Wheeler Avenue was purchased by Sean Martin and Erica Mirich for $805,000, according to records from the Washoe County Assessor’s office.

By the end of March, the tenants received a letter that the building will undergo extensive renovations, with Mirich offering to renew their leases at a higher rate. Tenant Brooke Noble was offered a new one-year lease for $1,050 a month — nearly 45% higher than the $725 she was paying.

Noble responded by saying it was a bit high and asked if it would be possible to pay $900 instead.

The owners declined.

Noble then decided not to renew her lease and gave the owners her 30-day notice.

“There is no limit to the amount a landlord can raise the rent,” Noble said. “It teaches me that renters don't really have nearly as many protections.”

Noble, who remained deeply concerned about the issue, emailed several media outlets and gave interviews about her situation.

The 33-year-old tenant also sent emails to Truckee Meadows Tomorrow, where Mirich serves as executive director. The organization describes itself as a grassroots-based nonprofit that works to improve the quality of life in the area.

“I emailed to let them know this is what (Mirich) is doing and that I think that it’s the opposite of what their values are supposed to be,” Noble said.

Soon after, Mark Smallhouse, a lawyer who represented Martin and Mirich, sent Noble a cease and desist letter.

Noble’s neighbors, meanwhile, suddenly received a letter from the owners withdrawing their initial offer for a new lease. Craig McCullar received his letter on April 26. In it, the landlords stated:

“We've decided not to renew your lease at 715 Wheeler #C. Please do not to hesitate to use us as a housing reference going forward as you've taken wonderful care of our property. We've enjoyed having you as tenants and wish you the best of luck.”

McCullar was shocked. While the 58-year-old tenant was not exactly happy about the rent increase, he and his partner Cindy Stewart still planned to accept their renewal offer for $950 a month. Instead, they ended up scrambling to find a new place in a tough rental market before their lease ends in May.

While McCullar considers Noble a friend, he says he had nothing to do with her decision to talk to the media or email Truckee Meadows Tomorrow.

“Brooke is a good neighbor and a good friend but what Brooke does is her own business and not mine,” McCullar said. “Brooke speaks to the media — which I had absolutely nothing to do with — and three minutes later, we get an email saying our lease is not being renewed.”

“Everything was good then now all of a sudden, it’s not good,” McCullar added.

“I don’t want to say that they did it as retaliation but it’s just too much of a coincidence. It’s totally unfair.”

Mirich did not respond to a request for comment from the Reno Gazette Journal. Mirich's lawyer, Smallhouse, declined to comment on McCullar's situation, saying he did not have information about it.

As for Noble, Smallhouse stressed there was nothing personal about her case, it was just business. Noble was paying less than the average rent for the neighborhood and the increase was done to bring her unit’s rent closer to the market rate for Midtown, Smallhouse said.

A look at the latest numbers from Johnson Perkins Griffin showed that the average rent for a one bedroom, one bath apartment in Reno in the first quarter of this year was $1,158. The average rent for all apartment types in Reno’s downtown urban area was $1,457.

“What she was offered was less than what other places in the neighborhood are being rented for,” Smallhouse said. “Unfortunately for Noble, she’s not able to afford living in that neighborhood based on her salary and that’s just the economics of Reno.”

‘Unequal power’ between landlords and tenants?

The experiences of Lee, Soberanis and McCullar are not isolated. Housing-related requests account for a large number of cases handled by Reno-based nonprofit group Washoe Legal Services.

The organization provides free or low-cost legal services for such issues as child advocacy, domestic violence, immigration, inmate assistance and consumer protection.

In 2018, for example, Washoe Legal Services took on about 1,500 cases dealing with just housing issues. Common themes from the cases involve a lack of recourse for tenants when a landlord decides to significantly increase their rent or evicts them for no cause after the lease is up.

Everything from the amount that landlords can raise rents to the time it takes to evict a tenant is “very, very different here in Nevada” compared to states with stronger renter rights, said Washoe Legal Services supervising attorney Rita Greggio.

“Nevada does not have very strong tenant protections compared to other states,” Greggio said. “In the landlord-tenant relationship, there’s an issue of unequal power.”

There are no limits, for example, on how much a property owner can raise rents, Greggio said. The only requirement is for landlords to give 45 days notice before a rent increase to tenants without a long-term lease or with leases that are expiring.

This is especially disadvantageous for monthly tenants who do not have a long-term lease agreement. In such cases, a landlord can raise rents about every three months if they choose, Greggio said.

For tenants who pay rent on a weekly basis, it gets even worse because the time frame for notification is just 15 days.

Renters, meanwhile, practically have no option to contest a no-cause eviction.

Besides asking for additional time to move due to a disability or being elderly, the only way to contest a no-cause eviction in Nevada is to prove it was being done because of retaliation, Greggio said.

Proving such a claim is easier said than done.

While certain retaliatory actions are written into the law — a landlord can’t evict a renter without cause after the tenant made a complaint to code enforcement, for example — cases such as being evicted after talking to a reporter are not.

“Retaliation can be a tricky defense,” Greggio said. “A lot of times, you’re looking at circumstantial evidence.”

Legislating to the lowest common denominator?

With many residents clamoring for lawmakers to address the region’s housing issues, several housing affordability bills have been introduced at the 2019 Nevada Legislature.

Rent affordability is a serious problem statewide, said state Sen. Julia Ratti, who is pushing legislation to address Nevada's affordable housing crisis.

“There are 200,000 Nevadans who are rent-burdened,” Ratti said. “That means they're spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing.

“When you're doing that and you have a normal crisis — like your car breaks down, or you have a tooth that needs some attention — the likelihood that you're now going to be evicted skyrockets,” Ratti added.

The bills, however, are seeing strong pushback from the real estate industry.

Greg Peek, president of development and property management firm ERGS Properties, contends that Reno finds itself in the current mess because of over-regulation.

“My permitting fees have gone up, my licensing fees have gone up, my insurance fees have gone up and my regulatory compliance fees have gone up,” Peek said. “When you bring in that California mindset that we need to have more regulations, guess what? Those regulations cost money.”

“If there was an adequate supply of housing, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion (about rent increases),” Peek added.

Peek was especially critical of proposals such as mandatory inclusionary zoning — which requires a certain share of new developments to include affordable housing — and rent control as a way to address the housing affordability issue.

Talk of rent control can encourage landlords to raise rents to get ahead of its implementation, which happened in 2017 when then-Reno Councilman Paul McKenzie asked for a legal opinion about it.

“I know that our decision just to look into rent control has caused a jump in rents from people saying, ‘OK, if they’re going to do it, then we want to get ahead of it and raise rents up now,’” McKenzie told the Reno Gazette Journal a month later.

Forced inclusionary zoning, on the other hand, could dissuade developers from undertaking projects, according to Peek. Instead, inclusionary zoning needs to be incentive-based to encourage developers to do them, he added.

Even proposed tenant protections to prevent landlords from having damage fees rolled into the rent can have unintended consequences, incentivizing landlords to raise security deposits instead, Peek said.

Peek does not deny that there are landlords taking advantage of the current market.

“The reality is, there are good and bad operators, just like there are good and bad doctors and good and bad car dealers and good and bad cell phone dealers,” Peek said. “Any industry is always going to have bad stories, but if we allow ourselves to legislate to the lowest common denominator, everyone else is going to get hurt.”

'What renters' rights? We have none'

Rosa Manzanares, one of five local renters interviewed for this story, has been leasing her Reno apartment for one year and four months. Then “out of nowhere,” she received a letter in April informing her that rent was going up from $1,400 to $1,700.

For Manzanares, it was the $300 straw that broke the camel's back.

“I’m a single mom with two kids and I can’t afford to pay $1,700 a month in rent — it’s just not possible,” Manzanares said.

“Honestly, I think that it’s ridiculous that they can just do that. It’s greediness because they know they can do it."

Peek declined to comment on the specific cases involving renters who talked to the Reno Gazette Journal as it did not involve any of his rental properties.

Peek suspects that some of the increases involved properties that have not kept up with market rates and decided to catch up in one go.

Personally, Peek says he would not raise rents as steeply as some of the operators did for the renters interviewed for this article.

“If you do a 40% increase, that can screw up somebody’s budget so I can understand people getting upset,” Peek said. “That’s an awful situation.”

In some cases, landlords are using the historically low vacancies to take advantage of tenants’ lack of familiarity with the law.

Washoe Legal Services’ Greggio cites examples of tenants agreeing to vacate in less than 30 days because they did not know that it was against the law for the landlord to do so.

Other cases involve landlords making renters agree to modify the terms of an existing lease that has not yet expired. These are usually done to make the terms more favorable for the landlord, such as increasing the rent or turning a one-year lease into a six-month lease.

Peek says he understands the anger and frustration people feel against the industry when such examples come up. But he stressed that it’s important not to paint everyone with a broad brush.

Most property owners "want to do the right thing,” Peek said. “But you’re going to have a handful of people in any industry who are just idiots.”

For renters such as Manzanares, however, landlords just have way too much power under Nevada law.

After her experience, Manzanares has joined other renters such as Noble, Soberanis and McCullar in calling for a cap on how muchrent can be raised.

As someone who was born and raised in the area, Manzanares says she never imagined that Reno-Sparks’ housing situation would turn into what it has become. Manzanares described seeing so many fellow renters displaced as “disgusting.”

McCullar agreed.

Asked about his thoughts on renters’ rights in Nevada, McCullar echoed a phrase mentioned by other tenants who talked to the Reno Gazette Journal.

“What renters’ rights?” McCullar said while laughing in exasperation. “We have none.”

“Look, I understand that (property owners) gotta make their money back, I totally understand that. But for them to just come in and kick you out so they can make more money off the place, where’s the justice in that? For them to give you an offer to stay then have that taken back for no reason and no cause — I don’t know — that might be right legally but it’s definitely not right morally, you know what I mean?”

For a brief moment, McCullar goes silent.

“To me, it’s not right,” the 58-year-old Reno resident said. “It’s not right, man. It’s just not right.”

Jason Hidalgo covers business and technology for the Reno Gazette Journal, and also reviews video games as part of his Technobubble features. Follow him on Twitter @jasonhidalgo. Like this content? Support local journalism with an RGJ digital subscription.

RGJ political reporter James DeHaven contributed to this report.