Being Evicted?

I have been an apartment manager of 72 units for seven years, and have only evicted a handful of people. The last person I evicted was two years ago. There are several reasons for this, and if you are being evicted in Oregon, I hope that you will read on.

Being evicted can create problems for you in finding a new apartment for years. It can be a real struggle to find an apartment complex that will accept anyone with an eviction on their records, particularly if you want to live in the area of your choice. If you are being evicted, before you do anything else (and before it is too late), you should be aware of the following:

1. Getting a 72-hour notice to either correct something (such as paying late rent or removing someone who doesn't belong in your apartment) is not an eviction unless you choose not to comply.

2. Getting a 30-day No Cause to Vacate is not an eviction unless you choose not to comply.

3. Receiving a court summons to appear in court (also known as a Residential Eviction Summons) is not an eviction unless you either choose not to comply with the order to appear in court, or choose not to comply with the agreement you make with the court.

I'm hopeful that the phrase "choose not to comply" was sufficiently noticeable. While there are many things than can seem to spin out of our control and make us feel helpless, and there are many reasons why we may at some time find ourselves being asked to vacate an apartment, we almost always have the ability to choose to not have an eviction haunt us for years.

While I'm not going to go into detail in this post, I will gladly answer questions. I'll be making some additional posts on each of those three points, hopefully to make the information more easily found.