Supervisor Myrna Melgar is introducing legislation Tuesday that would protect tenants who are unfairly portrayed as troubled by landlords seeking their evictions. The ordinance would amend the San Francisco city code to create a clearer definition of what constitutes a “nuisance” for the purposes of eviction.
Melgar said the city’s current language is too vague and invites abuse. She drew inspiration for the ordinance after six seniors who live at a building at 1120 Jackson St. in Chinatown received nuisance eviction notices for allegedly having too many belongings in their apartments, as reported by the San Francisco Standard, allegedly dangerously cluttering the units.
“When I read about Sue Yeng I cried in the office,” said Melgar.
Eviction said “nuisance” evictions are filed for alleged stealing of another neighbor’s package, using appliances in an in-law unit, cooking late at night and parking a car outside of the lanes.
The proposed amendments raise the bar by requiring an offense to be of a severe nature, like subletting or transferring the unit when that has been prohibited by the landlord, seriously damaging the property, letting others damage the property, or using the property for something illegal.
The law would also only count instances that are “severe” or both “recurring” and “continuing” — under the current code, severe, recurring or continuing alone is enough.
The law would also change a portion of the code that defines a nuisance as “creating a substantial interference with the comfort, safety or enjoyment of the landlord or tenants in the building” to remove reference to the landlord. The new language would read count nuisance as ‘so disorderly as to destroy the peace and quiet of other occupants.”
Finally, the law would bar evictions over property damage if a landlord has already accepted payment for the damages.
The legislation comes as rents are sky-high driven by the AI boom, and evictions on the rise.
“I am introducing this legislation to tighten up the definition of nuisance, so people can’t scam it,” Melgar said in front of nearly 50 people at a press conference on Monday outside of 907 Valencia St. in the Mission District, where tenants organized and started a rent strike against Mosser Living, citing poor living conditions after a fire earlier last year.
Melgar made the announcement standing beside District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder, who is co-sponsoring the legislation and has her own targeting evictions: She introduced legislation co-sponsored by Melgar seeking to bar evictions for less than a month’s rent.
In a rental market where the price of a one-bedroom averages $3,915, landlords are using all the tools at their disposal to evict tenants and re-rent units, said Molly Goldberg, director of the Anti-Displacement Coalition.
“If you can just empty out a unit of someone who’s been living in there for 30, 40, 50 years and suddenly jack up the rent to whatever you think you can get away with, suddenly landlords are looking for things that they can call a nuisance,” Goldberg said.
Nuisance eviction notices totaled 423 in the fiscal year 2025-2026, a 31 percent increase from the 323 recorded in 2024-2025 and a 47 percent from the 288 recorded in 2023-2024.
Following closely were evictions for breach of lease, with 397 in the fiscal year 2025-2026. Such notices are another tool for landlords seeking to evict longtime tenants, Goldberg said: She recalled that during the last tech boom, her group heard of cases where landlords argued tenants were in breach of lease for hanging their clothes out to dry on a cable, for example, or using the backyard when they were not allowed to.
“That’s a combination of harassment often and looking for excuses to circumvent rent control and just cause eviction protections,” she said.
Last year, San Francisco recorded its highest number of eviction notices post-pandemic, with 1,495, a 62 percent increase from the 921 recorded in 2024.
The number is likely higher: Landlords are not required to report a non-payment eviction.
The Mission District recorded its highest number of eviction notices last year since 2016, at 170. It was also the sixth highest year recorded since 2007.
