Tech Workers Evict Kindergarten Teacher from Mission Apartment for ‘Using Appliances’

Michelle Malliett's two-bedroom in-law unit is on the lower level of the main house (right), with its own entrance in the rear. Since 2007, she has paid $1,700 a month to live there with her daughter. Michelle Malliett's two-bedroom in-law unit is on the lower level of the main house (right), with its own entrance in the rear. Since 2007, she has paid $1,700 a month to live there with her daughter. Photo: Google Street View, San Francisco Magazine Photo: Google Street View, San Francisco Magazine Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Tech Workers Evict Kindergarten Teacher from Mission Apartment for ‘Using Appliances’ 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

This article was originally published on the web site of San Francisco Magazine. To read it in its entirety, go to sanfranmag.com.

One chilly afternoon in March, Michelle Malliett came home to her Mission district apartment to find a legal notice taped to her door. The notice gave her three days to move out of her two-bedroom apartment, an illegal in-law unit that she shares with her 17-year-old daughter. Her reaction? "I panicked," she recalls.

Malliett, 49, is a single mother who holds down two part-time jobs, as a teacher's aide for special-needs kids in the mornings and as a kindergarten teacher in the afternoons. Since 2007, she had been paying $1,700 per month for the lower level of her landlady's Victorian, but in March the property sold—for $1.3 million—to a couple who work in tech. When Malliett read the notice, she knew that she was in trouble: $1,700 just wouldn't go far in the modern-day Mission, nor anywhere in the city, even if she had more than three days to find a new home. "I feel like a dog gets more notice to be out of somewhere than I did," Malliett says. "They treated me like I was a dog."

Though S.F. has proven to be an inhospitable place for renters the last several years, the circumstances surrounding this eviction are particularly startling. It seems that Malliett's new landlords—Mathieu Verbeeck, a VP of product development at Mubi, and Catherine Crevels, a marketing manager at Intuit—are testing out a novel strategy for ejecting tenants. They contend that Malliett and her daughter are causing a "nuisance" by living in a unit that lacks the proper permits. The Board of Supervisors has already blocked landlords from evicting tenants of illegal units simply because they are illegal, but here the owners are taking a different approach—one that tenants' rights advocates are concerned will create a worrying precedent.

"This is the first time we've seen a tenant accused of nuisance for living in an illegal unit," says tenant rights attorney Joseph Tobener, whose firm is representing Malliett. And what, pray tell, is the nuisance cited in the legal notice? "Defendant's usage of gas or electrical appliances is dangerous." That's right: Only in San Francisco do you stand to lose your rent-controlled apartment for boiling water.

Jonathan Bornstein, the attorney representing the landlords, says that "this is not the heartless situation it seems." It's just that his clients don't want to be responsible for an illegal situation of someone else's making. Asked if a building or code inspector has found a problem with Malliett's unit, he said yes, but would not specify what the defect is because of the ongoing legal dispute. "She should be angry at the former owner who did this to her," Bornstein says of the unspecified defect.

Read the rest of this article at sanfranmag.com.