By Peggy Sturdivant

Last week the Mayor and Seattle Police Department announced a strategy to deal with a 9.5 block area of downtown Seattle that has been described as a gantlet of disorder and illegal activity. Meanwhile two City Council members drew an overflow crowd about rising apartment rentals and dared to introduce the words “Rent Control” to Seattle.

Meanwhile back in Ballard, Sara Stapleton was actually relieved when she got permission to stay in her two-bedroom apartment for an additional two months. She was already eight months pregnant the day she received a notice from her landlord of a $700 increase in her monthly rent as of July 1, 2015. She vomited. Two days later she went into premature labor.

When a neighbor first contacted me about her 60 percent rent increase, effectively doubling her rent from two years before, I didn’t know how her situation and that of her pregnant neighbor downstairs were connected to the events at City Hall and downtown Seattle.

Sara Stapleton has lived in the bottom floor apartment of a 1900 two-story on 60th NW since 2009. For several years she paid $1,000; in addition to a bump last year, the July 1st increase brings her monthly rent to $1,800. Unlike Lockhaven renters who would have had similar increases if they chose to return after the building’s sale and remodel, there are no renovation projects proposed to justify the rent increase.

Stapleton and her upstairs neighbor Basha Brownstein both rent from Dick and Sandy Nimmer, doing business as Lancer Realty Investments. They write the rent checks directly to Richard G. (Dick) Nimmer. Stapleton says that when she’s had to phone them directly for an emergency they answer, “This is Dick and Sandy,” no matter which one of the couple picks up. She thought it was rather sweet.

“If it was just $200 or even $300 I’d probably just pay it,” Stapleton said. “I pictured bringing the baby home here. I love it here. Now I don’t know why I would even set up the nursery.” The letter she first received specified that a year lease be signed before July 1st or 20 days notice given of non-renewal. Unable to face moving within weeks of her due date, she’s relieved to be able to extend her lease by two months, but not happy to be “paying the extortion rate.”

Stapleton teaches ESL at North Seattle College and Brownstein is Community Program Manager at Cancer Lifeline. Stapleton cannot afford the new rent beyond the two-month extension. Brownstein cannot afford the rent increase without starting Social Security, which she wanted to delay.

They both love living on their residential street just blocks from Sunset Hill businesses, despite the building’s condition (which King County lists as “Low Average”). There’s no foundation; it is what’s known as post & pier construction, allowing a possum to crawl underneath and die. There’s an oft-patched crack in Stapleton’s bathroom wall that’s currently wide enough for a finger. “If I called every time the crack got bigger, I’d be calling every five days.” The floors are uneven, especially since a large tree was removed along an exterior wall; its trunk is still partially embedded where the asbestos siding meets the ground.

Dick and Sandy Nimmer have been responsive over the years. Stapleton and Brownstein know that the Nimmers own other units; the letter they received about the rent increase cited “pressure from investors.”

The mention of investors piqued my investigative interest. I have been trying to identify their units throughout the city, rumored to number at least sixty. Many of their properties are listed under corporate names, such as the 5000 Group for their 11-unit rental at 5000 14th NW.

A local realtor told me off the record that the Nimmers are responsive and kind, but they should have been raising the rents all along so that the increase wouldn’t be so dramatic. The realtor said they could have made a lot more money on their properties and talk of rent control may be prompting landlords to make market adjustments. There’s also a new city inspection process that costs landlords $150 and could lead to fines for code violations. Dramatic rent hikes like these could be considered reactive to what’s ahead.

I got a bit obsessed looking through information available on-line from King County, City of Seattle, and Washington State. I was trying to understand why, if the landlords are supposedly so kind and under pressure from investors, I couldn’t find any record of investors and why they never talk to the press. Their reticence was “somewhat to their detriment,” again according to my off the record source.

Then I learned something completely unexpected. I found that Richard G. Nimmer of Lancer Realty, d.b.a. the 1507 Group, owns the Eitel Building, a Historic Landmark Building downtown. That building is part of the area in the 9.5 Block Strategy announced in a press conference by Mayor Ed Murray last week. Over the last 20 years, the building has been called an urban blight and withstood various development plans and potential sales. According to the 9.5 Block Strategy, there will be a Seattle Police Department storefront operations center directly across the street at 1516 Second Avenue.

In the downtown commercial real estate business Mr. Nimmer is an anomaly, an old-fashioned single owner. He’s called “small potatoes” by a developer in one of many real estate columns. However the 60 percent rent increases that may bring some Low and Below Average rental units closer to the going market are not small potatoes for renters like Stapleton and Brownstein. They’re devastating.