The vulnerable pay the price for the eviction moratorium

Ms. LaCasse would like to move into the single-family home she owns in Rhinebeck, N.Y., but she can’t boot her tenants, who are nearly $25,000 behind in rent. In court filings, she described herself and her underage daughter as “effectively homeless.” Ms. LaCasse works three jobs and says she’s seeking a fourth “to offset the cost of my tenants not paying so I don’t get so far into debt, I can never get out.”

Ms. LaCasse showed me a TikTok video in which the tenant’s daughter uses an aerosol can to spray a heart on the mirror of a bathroom in the house, then lights it on fire. She says her tenants have broken doors, put holes in the walls, and clogged the septic tank, causing what she estimates to be tens of thousands of dollars of damage. (The tenants declined to comment.)

The CDC order doesn’t preclude evictions of tenants who are “engaging in criminal activity while on the premises,” “threatening the health or safety of other residents,” or damaging property. But landlords I interviewed said they’ve struggled to evict even in extreme circumstances and even in places like Connecticut, where the state eviction moratorium lapsed earlier this summer.