{"id":201244,"date":"2026-03-02T23:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T23:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/201244\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T23:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T23:24:11","slug":"mosser-tenants-on-valencia-st-announce-rent-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/201244\/","title":{"rendered":"Mosser tenants on Valencia St. announce rent strike"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mosser Living is one of the largest landlords<\/a> in San Francisco, and they do not, tenants at 907 Valencia St. say, like to repair their buildings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The majority of the tenants at the 31-unit building at 20th and Valencia streets announced today that they are done paying rent until Mosser repairs both damage from a fire that broke out in the building back in February 2025, as well as several other maintenance problems.<\/p>\n

To publicize the strike, tenants hung an enormous banner reading \u201cRent Strike!\u201d outside of one of their windows. In response, multiple businesses around the building \u2014\u00a0Dog Eared Books, Smitten Kitchen, and Consumer Auto Body Inc. \u2014 posted signs reading \u201cSolidarity with the tenants at 907 Valencia\u201d on their windows.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AA sign in support of the tenants strike on the window of Dog Eared Books on Thursday Feb. 27, 2026. Photo by Oscar Palma.<\/p>\n

The saga began last February, when a fire broke out in a lightwell on the second floor of the four-story building, leaving an estimated $120,000 in damages in its wake, according to the fire department.<\/p>\n

Tenants say the building\u2019s residential units were in disrepair before, and the fire did not improve things. At least two of the building\u2019s 27 units were affected by the fire. The building\u2019s ground-floor commercial tenant,\u00a0the salad chain Mixt, was able to remain open.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Six weeks after the fire, in April of last year, Mosser Living served capital-improvement eviction notices<\/a> to tenants in 23 units. This type of eviction notice is used to clear out tenants so that construction can take place to improve building conditions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tenants, suspicious that they even needed to leave the building, formed a tenants association and began working with the Housing Rights Committee<\/a>. They soon found that Mosser had failed to secure building permits before serving the eviction notices, which is required under city code.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"TwoRussell Lewis, right, and Linda Lewis, left, stand in front of their apartment at Mosser Living on Valencia St. The two have been living there for more than 50 years. Photo by Oscar Palma.<\/p>\n

Armed with that information, tenants in 14 of the 23 units refused to leave.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the tenants who refused to leave the building, as of publication, Mosser has not repaired the fire damage that is keeping their former neighbors from returning. It has instead, they told Mission Local, begun to remodel vacant units in the building \u2014 apparently in preparation for new tenants. <\/p>\n

During that time, they said, Mosser has not followed through on requests for basic maintenance for units that tenants are living in. Last week,\u00a0after being informed of the strike, the company started to send workers to inspect other occupied units. Still, tenants want to see more.<\/p>\n

Mosser did not reply to a request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since Aug. 14, 2025, 20 complaints<\/a> have been filed with the city\u2019s Department of Building Inspection, 18 of which remain active. The complaints are for garbage not picked up, broken air ducts, no heat, dilapidated flooring, damaged walls, windows not sealing properly, bathtubs and sinks not draining, smoke alarms chirping, appliances not working, and a rodent infestation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An inspector who visited the building on Jan. 27 found that 907 Valencia was still in violation of the housing code.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Many of the tenants living in the building are elderly and are living with disabilities that make dealing with these conditions particularly challenging.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Luz Zavala, who\u2019s lived in the building for 30 years, said that since Mosser took over the building in 2020, living conditions have sharply declined. Included in the rental payments every month is garbage collection, tenants said. But, over the last couple of years, the garbage bins often aren\u2019t taken out until the bins overflow, Zavala said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe basement is a whole mess,\u201d Zavala said in Spanish. \u201cA rat bit me there a little over a year ago, and I had to go to the emergency room.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Withholding rent payments can lead to a nonpayment eviction attempt, but the tenants said that it is a risk they\u2019re willing to take. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re scared, but we wanna live like people,\u201d said Zavala. \u201cWe\u2019ve paid on time, and it\u2019s been us who have taken care of this building.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorneys from Legal Assistance<\/a> for the elderly, Asian Law Caucus<\/a> and Mission Economic Development Agency<\/a> will represent the tenants in case Mosser attempts to evict them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mosser has in the past been accused of stalling on repairs after a fire displaced<\/a> several tenants in the Tenderloin. In November, Mission Local reported that 14 Mosser buildings<\/a>, totaling 428 residential units and one commercial, had received receivership notices for lack of payment on the properties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Mosser applied for an extension to the capital improvements eviction at 907 Valencia in June, Administrative Law Judge Andrew Yick denied<\/a> the request on the grounds that Mosser still had not filed for building permits. The last permit on record is for plumbing work in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re sick and tired of it. We\u2019re fed up,\u201d said Rusell Lewis, who\u2019s lived at 907 Valencia for more than 50 years. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna do a rent strike on them until all of our demands are met.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mosser Living is one of the largest landlords in San Francisco, and they do not, tenants at 907…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[32398,28175,101,103,102,104,106,105,583],"class_list":{"0":"post-201244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-20th-street","9":"tag-evictions","10":"tag-san-francisco","11":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","12":"tag-san-francisco-news","13":"tag-sf","14":"tag-sf-headlines","15":"tag-sf-news","16":"tag-valencia-street"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}