Two floors above the clamor of the anti-eviction protest on Lucky Street, a front room flat sits bare and vacant. The only evidence that the space had been recently occupied was a pile of leftover moving boxes stacked against the back wall.
The boxes belonged to a man who building resident Tom Anderson could only identify as Jose.
“He was scared and didn’t want to deal with the property manager,” Anderson said of Jose, who hasn’t lived in the flat at 3152 26th St. for the last two months. Before departing, Jose had been living there for the last 12 years. “He wanted to get out before the situation got worse,” said Anderson.
On Aug. 20, roughly 25 anti-eviction activists and some subtenants gathered in front of the apartment complex at Lucky and 26th streets to protest the coming Sept. 2 eviction of the entire building except for property manager and master tenant German Maldonado.
The testimonials from some of the buildings tenants living at 3150-3154 26th St. included allegations that Maldonado had withheld rent payments to the landlord and had harassed and threatened female tenants.
Subtenant Maria Machetes, who is one of about 15 being evicted, claims she was physically assaulted by a friend of Maldonado’s while walking back to her flat. She alleged that the man who attacked her regularly prowls the building and is being allowed by Maldonado to live in one of the fire escapes. Machetes said her girlfriend is so terrified she will be leaving her job in San Francisco to return to her native Colombia.
“If they evict us, they need to evict him (Maldonado) too,” Machetes said. “They broke apart my family.”
Mayra Alvarado, a subtenant in the building for the last five years, said she began receiving deportation threats from Maldonado after arranging for her two children to travel from their native El Salvador to come and live with her in the building a little over a year into her stay.
“I’m worried about my kids. They’re afraid of him. I am too … but I have nowhere else to go,” Alvarado said.
Some residents, including Anderson, claim that their rent was withheld by Maldonado, who as property manager, is solely responsible for collecting rent from subtenants and making payments to landlord Thomas Aquilina.
Anderson said Maldonado missed paying flat 3152’s rent last December and did so during different months for different units.
“I’ve been angry about this for months. We all paid our rent,” Anderson said. “For all I know, he took the (extra) money and went on vacation.”
Public files from the San Francisco Superior Court show that Maldonado had been embroiled in a series of legal battles from May to July 2014 with the landlord Aquilina, who had been in the process of suing Maldonado for missing rent payments dating back to July of last year. Aquilina filed an eviction summons against Maldonado on May 12, 2014, citing that the property manager owed $6,150 in back rent from the months of July and December of 2013, and May of 2014.
“It’s rough because subtenants have less rights than tenants on a lease. That’s something that also needs to be recognized because given how expensive rent is in San Francisco, there are more people that are having to sublease to make the rent for the month,” said Maria Zamudio, a San Francisco housing rights campaign organizer with Causa Justa. “So it can be hard for someone who doesn’t know how to be a landlord. And it can also put people in really precarious situations with their subtenants. So there needs to be rights for subtenants as well.”
Another subtenant, who said he works as a construction worker in the area and agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, alleged that Maldonado was able to avoid being evicted and secured his position as property manager after attending negotiation meetings with Aquilina.
“The thief is being allowed to stay and the victims are being evicted,” the tenant said.
As a broken smoke detector clings to the ceiling of flat 3152 by the threads of its exposed wires, a service termination notice lies crumpled in front of flat 3154 next door.
Just two floors below in flat 3150, one tenant has already had their water shut off for a week while the electricity service in other units also awaits termination.
“(Maldonado) kept lying to us, saying we had nothing to worry about,” tenant Esther Bracha said.
Some tenants like Bracha, who received an eviction notice from Maldonado via text, said they have not received formal eviction notices while others have said they only became aware of the Sept. 2 eviction date from their neighbors.
“I told him ‘You can’t evict me by text message,’ and he said ‘Well, you’re being evicted,’” said Bracha.
Some tenants including Alvarado, said they will remain on the property to challenge the eviction for as long as possible.
Maldonado was unavailable to be reached for comment, despite multiple attempts by phone and email. Aquilina and his lawyer Brenda Cruz Keith were also unavailable for comment.