Ask Contact 6: Tenant vs. landlord issues

From the Fox 6 studios, this is Ask Contact 6. This is a segment where we bring in experts to answer your questions. The topic we've chosen for today is landlord-tenant problems. This is actually the first time we're revisiting a topic, and we're doing it because of the volume of questions we got the first time around. And we want to give you the opportunity to ask our experts your questions directly. Contact 6 doesn't usually handle landlord-tenant questions as part of our segment at Fox 6, but we want to be helpful to you. by still offering these insights. So to answer your questions today, we have two experts from Legal Action of Wisconsin who actually participated in our last segment on this topic. The first is Abriel Newman. She's the Housing Law Priority Coordinator. Abriel, thanks for coming back. Of course, happy to do this. Yeah, we're happy to have you too. And we also have Brittany Shainick. She's the Milwaukee Housing Supervising Attorney. Brittany, thanks for returning as well. Thank you. I'm looking forward to these questions. We're going to get to them in just a little bit. But first, we did have to paraphrase or edit a couple of questions for clarity. Also, Abriel and Brittany will do their best to answer your questions today based on the information we have. But for more information on your specific case, you may want to call Legal Action of Wisconsin directly. So let's get started. Reading our questions again today is our Contact Six producer, Annette. Annette, what's our question? Our first one comes from Tiffany in Milwaukee. She writes, after my one-year lease expired, I wasn't asked to sign the new one-year lease until six months later. I was told it would be retroactive. Two months after I signed it, my landlord gave me a notice to vacate. I left the property with newer updates and in excellent condition. He never gave my security deposit back. Is this legal? Okay. So we kind of boiled this down to two questions, you know, is my termination notice legal and could he withhold? My security deposit, Brittany, where do you want to start with that? Yeah, so this question highlights some really fundamental issues when it comes to landlord-tenant law. Number one is a lease term. So what Tiffany is asking is she's talking about she had a year-long lease agreement with her landlord, and that's very common, year-long or six months. That provides the tenant and the landlord protections because they know exactly how long it is that this tenancy is going to last. So in Tiffany's case, when she signed that six month. agreement, that means that the landlord can't just terminate the tenancy for no reason. He would have had or she would have had to provide a reason. Let's say they're alleging there's a lease violation or behind on rent. From Tiffany's question, it sounds like none of that is the case here. And therefore, just issuing a termination notice would not be legal. Interesting. Okay. What about this idea of retroactively signing leases? Does that happen sometimes? Sometimes we do see it. It's a little bit more rare, but the contract would or the lease would define the term, right? It's six months. And so it would still be valid at the time that he gave this notice. Okay. What about the withholding of the security deposit part of the question We see security deposit questions come up so often. This is a very common issue. The big things to know are after you vacate a unit within 21 days, you can return the keys, your landlord has to give you your security deposit back or provide a reason why they're withholding it in writing. I'm So make sure that if you're a tenant to leave a forwarding address starting or have your mail forwarded to a new address. It sounds like... Tiffany's landlord did neither of those things, didn't return her security deposit and didn't give her a reason why he withheld it. to Yeah, it's difficult when she says they left it in excellent condition, right? speak With newer updates and so on. Does it help when people take extra steps to protect themselves, like document what it looked like when they left now. or anything you would recommend they do to kind of avoid the situation arising? Absolutely. We always tell tenants, make sure you take pictures of the unit. Make sure that you communicate in writing where the keys are. If you're not handing it in person to them, take as many pictures as you can and do a walkout if you can before you leave so that everybody's aware about the condition of the unit as you vacate. Okay. So if they feel their rights have been violated, is that the point where they would contact you? Yeah. Folks can contact us. Um, and then there are also some other legal, uh, civil legal aid resources in the community that we can tell you about. Maybe you can put it in the chat. Yeah, absolutely. You can even tell us them now if you want. Sure. Okay. Um, so we have ourselves, we're a legal action of Wisconsin. There's legal aid society that provides civil legal aid. The Milwaukee, uh, Milwaukee justice center is in, The G-floor room of the courthouse, and then there's also the Marquette Volunteer Legal Clinics. Wonderful. Annette, what is our next question? Our next one comes from Audrick in Milwaukee. Audrick writes, I'm a disabled tenant and I have an issue with my landlord involving my rent deposit. I have a medical issue for departing my unit. I have a written letter from my doctor saying I need to leave for safety reasons. They took my whole deposit. I've been paying for seven years with no missed payments. All right, Gabrielle, we also kind of broke this into two questions, right? So can I terminate my tenancy for a medical issue? And can I get a security deposit back for a medical issue? Where would you start with this? Yeah, so we'll start with the whole idea of the problem that Audrick is having about terminating their tenancy due to a medical issue. So this is actually something that, you know, I see pretty frequently is especially with the conditions of housing that we're seeing in Milwaukee that can be really adverse to someone's health. And if someone has a medical condition that, you know, makes it so they can't live safely and in a, you know, be healthy in their unit, it makes a lot of sense that someone would want to vacate that property because of something that, you know, could be really So particularly if this medical issue that Audrick is describing, I mean, they even did say I'm a disabled tenant and moving out of the property, breaking the lease would be the. So accommodation that would be required for them to be able to, you know, actually be able to live a full life with their disability, not living in that unit, then that's something that the landlord really has to consider accommodating for. Otherwise, they could be liable for discrimination, actually. So, um, Having a disability, that's a protected class under both Wisconsin and federal fair housing laws. So the idea is that, you know, if someone has a qualified disability, they can request a reasonable accommodation and the landlord has to accommodate that so long as it's not unduly burdensome to them. And breaking a lease early because of a disability is something that's been seen. Not just, you know, that we've seen, but it's also something that's been, you know, commonly litigated in federal case law. So there's actually a lot out there that says that breaking a lease early is a reasonable accommodation and a landlord must accommodate for it. And I do want to say that organizations like Disability Rights Wisconsin, they have sample letters on their website that actually, you know, lay out like a letter that someone can print off and write in to their landlord that says, I have this disability. I'm requesting to break my lease early because of this. Respond to me in 10 days and let me know what we're going to do here. In that case, would you still get your security deposit? So that's a, you know, that's an interesting question, too, because, you know, we talked a little bit about security deposits in the last question. And, you know, the landlord can withhold some things legally from your deposit, but only things that you can be held legally responsible for. So usually that's, you know, unpaid rent, unpaid utilities or damages to the property that are beyond just normal wear and tear. So, you know, based on what we just talked about with this last question, you know, Accommodating a tenant, moving out, and actually, the case law I was talking about says letting them break their lease without a fee accompanied with it. Because oftentimes, in general, if you're breaking a lease, then there may be a fee in your lease that you agreed to pay if you're breaking the lease early. But if you're breaking it for... an accommodation, it could be considered discrimination, and it has been in certain cases that have been in federal court, that the landlord can't give you a fee for that. So the reason I say that is because if the landlord's then claiming that there's unpaid rent on the line with the lease because you broke it early, can you be held legally responsible for that? I would say no. But, you know, if there were other damages to the property or other, you know, unpaid bills and things like that, then the landlord could, you know, withhold some things from the deposit. You know, we don't know exactly why this property is considered unsafe for Audrick. You know, they mentioned the disability. When I read this, I thought of people who write to us saying, I have breathing issues and there's mold in my unit. Would they also have a right if they had a note from a doctor, if it was something like that? Yeah, I mean, it really is kind of fact dependent on someone's situation, because you do have to, you know, prove that you have a qualified disability under, you know, the fair housing laws and whatnot. And a lot of times, you know, people will be people, I mean, landlords, I would say would be a little bit more, you know, skeptical about when it comes to mold, just because it's so common. Mm-hmm. But yeah, I mean, definitely there are a lot of people who, you know, absolutely can't live in a property that, you know, is making it hard for them to breathe. So either relocating or ultimately moving out, that's something that they could pursue. Sure. All right. Is there anything you guys want to add before we move on to our next question from Katie? Just as a follow-up to what Abriel is saying, the landlord does have a duty to mitigate. So if for any reason a tenant needs to vacate, break their lease early, you know, the tenant should let their landlord know as soon as possible. And the landlord has to take steps to re-rent the property. They can't just sit on their hands and let a year go by and come after the tenant for that. The idea is that, you know, there's a housing shortage, there's a rental shortage. And so the landlord needs to take steps to re-rent that property. Okay. Interesting and good to know. What do we have next, Annette? This one's from Katie in Oconomowoc. She says, my stepdaughter's mother and fiancé were killed in a motorcycle crash. It is still under investigation. We are struggling with a landlord who changed her locks and won't let the children in to get their belongings. They have memories and things that they need. More importantly, we need insurance information, a driver's license, birth certificate, and social security numbers. Their children lived with them full-time and was left with nothing but the clothes on his back. Katie, first of all, I'm so sorry for your loss. This sounds horrible. Brittany, what advice can you give her? Yeah, a devastating situation. Thank The state law says that after a tenant dies, the tenancy terminates after 60 days you so or at the end of the lease period, whatever is earlier. Within that 60 days, the estate of the deceased should be clarifying much for who's the executor, who's the administrator, having who's the personal representative, and providing that documentation to the landlord so the landlord knows that whoever is trying me. to claim the property has the legal right to do so. So that can take time, right? It can, yeah. So you'll want to work quickly on this, and if it's not a probate matter, working through the estate, through the legal way to get that finalized. And I assume communicating as much as you can with the landlord would be helpful, because the last thing you want is for all this to end up on the curb somewhere. Absolutely, absolutely. All right, anything else we should say before we move on? No, just, you know, my heart goes out to this family. Yeah. All right, Annette, what do we have from Janet? Janet says, I'm a 63, about to be 64-year-old disabled senior. The place where I live requires us to maintain the furnaces and plumbing. They want us to do this before calling them. I have no knowledge or certification to do so. Why are they not coming out to do these things themselves? The answer they gave us was they don't have enough maintenance people. This is a really interesting one, being asked to maintain a furnace and plumbing on your own. Abriel, what do you think of that? I don't think well of it. So the landlord generally has a duty to keep in a reasonable state of repair all of the equipment under their control and those things that are necessary to provide the services that the landlord is agreeing to give to someone, such as heat, sewage, those sorts of things. So they also have a duty to repair or replace any plumbing, electrical wiring, machinery, those sorts of things, too. There are some exceptions where if there are just very minor things, like I would say perhaps if your toilet's clogged, maybe that's something that the law would say the tenant has the duty to figure out. But things like fixing plumbing and fixing a furnace, especially given Janet's circumstances, seems very off to me, I would say. So most of the time. It'll go even further than the state law. Local building codes will be even more specific about what a landlord has to do. And I see that Janet is in Milwaukee, so I'll speak to the Milwaukee local ordinances that cover this area, 200-20 and 200-21. They explicitly put this responsibility in the hands of the landlord. And if your essential services are not working, you should call the local building inspector, I would say. Yeah, because then they can come and issue an order for the landlord to repair them. I know that it can be a little intimidating for a tenant to call the building inspector because you might fear retaliation. I think there's another question that even lends to that. Uh, but. Both state law, the Consumer Protection Administrative Code, and the Milwaukee Ordinances explicitly prohibit retaliation against tenants for calling the building inspector. So that means that They cannot file an eviction against their tenant or raise their rent or stop providing utilities for them because they, you know, complain to their landlord or complain to the city. And in Milwaukee, there's actually a 12-month presumption that if the landlord does any of those things after someone calls the building inspector or complains, that that's retaliation And they could be fined up to $2,000 for those. You know, instances. That presumption can, of course, be overcome by a good cause for doing such things. Usually that comes into play with eviction if someone's not paying their rent. So, always, always, always recommend to people to pay at least some rent, even if the landlord is not holding up their end of the bargain. There's always... Always a need to pay at least some rent. Otherwise, you really can be liable for eviction. And, you know, in Milwaukee, that can be a little bit in Milwaukee County. You know, we've we've put that in front of the court in a lot of in a lot of cases where I think that the court is more open to the idea that if someone doesn't pay all of their rent one month, but they paid some of it, but they paid. Full rent when there weren't working utilities and services and whatnot, then maybe they've created some sort of like rent credit that builds up. But that is not really common in other counties in the state. So for folks watching this outside of Milwaukee, it's just the less you pay. The more risk there is that you might face an eviction. Okay, that's also really good to know. And I empathize with Janet, because if I was told to do this kind of maintenance, I would be worried about doing further damage and further complicating that relationship with the landlord, which nobody needs that to get any more complicated. I do want to add one other thing as well, is that, so I don't know if... Janet's lease says that she's required to maintain the furnaces, or if the landlord is just now saying that verbally, but it's illegal to have a lease that requires, or I should say it differently, a lease that takes away the landlord's responsibility to keep your property habitable. Like, that's an explicit illegal provision in Wisconsin law, so. Okay. Interesting situation. Yeah. Janet, check your lease. That is really interesting. Is our next question from Tanya? Yes. She's in Milwaukee. She writes, I'm paying my rent on time, but my landlord is like a ghost. When I need a lot of repairs or fixes, he disappears. I have broken windows, leaking water, mice, the smell of dead animals, and my outlets don't work. I wish we didn't get questions like this a lot, but I'm sure you get them every single day. Brittany, the question we kind of boiled it down to is, how do I get my landlord to make repairs? Yeah. Unfortunately, we see these types of cases all too often. To the extent that you can, Tanya, make sure you're putting your repair requests for repairs in writing to your landlord. That'll document exactly what it is you're asking to be repaired and when you're asking it to be repaired So if the landlord doesn't promptly make those repairs, now Tanya should, you know, she has the right to contact the building inspector. That's a neutral third party that can document these code violations, these building code violations that it sounds like with the broken windows, the water, the mice. All of that could be documented by the building inspector. And then from there, Tanya really has two legal options. One is to move out and not be held responsible for the remainder of the lease. The other is to stay, try to get the repairs done, and as Abriel talked about, a process known as rent abatement. And this is just a general contract theory where every month Tanya's paying her full rent, but she's not getting the full benefit of that livable property. And so the idea is that after you've documented, you've told your landlord they've not made repairs, Tanya now has the right to withhold a portion of her rent that is reflective of everything that she's experiencing. Um, and that can put pressure on the landlord then to make those repairs, certainly contacting the city, having them issue an order to the landlord. Put pressure on them to make those repairs. The rent abatement process is risky. The more you withhold, the riskier eviction becomes. So wherever possible, you want to consult either your community agency, your building inspector, or seek legal advice on how to properly abate your rent. Yeah, I'm sure it helps your argument when you tell your landlord, I consulted with this agency and they recommended I pay. Absolutely. And tenants should never withhold their rent in full. So as frustrating as it is, and we see a lot of tenants who think you're not going to make repairs, I'm not going to pay rent. They should never, ever do that. Always pay something towards your rent. The more you withhold the risk your eviction becomes. Okay. You have to protect yourself, even if you're frustrated and angered and living in these difficult situations. Tanya, good luck with all of that. Annette, what do we have next? This one comes from Brandon in Milwaukee. He says there are. He says, our apartment complex has roach issues, among many other things. How can I pursue getting my landlord to do more about the problem? Okay, this is kind of similar to our last one, Abriel. How does someone force their landlord to come over and get rid of insects or something like roaches? Honestly, the process that Brittany just described, I would advise the exact same thing. Document everything. Talk to your landlord in writing about the issue, contact the building inspector, and then abate your rent with the assistance of an attorney or a community organization. Yes. And I do just want to say that, I wrote it down, I wanted to get it right, the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee has a monthly rent abatement clinic on the second Wednesday of each month, so someone could go there and get advice about how to properly abate their rent. Uh, but, Brittany and I were talking about this, there is a little bit of a caveat when it comes to pests, particularly bugs, uh, your lease really could have a provision in it that puts you responsible for infestations. Um, but, you know, if that's not your fault, like it wasn't because of something that you did, then... The issue remains the same, you know, you can withhold some of your rent, while the landlord, you know, has to be required to fix the issue. So it's always important to document the infestation, right when you first see it, and try to, you know, glean out what other factors are playing into it. Like, if there are roaches, such as in Brandon's case, then Is there also a leak? Because roaches really like moisture and whatnot. Do you have a leaky roof? Are there plumbing issues? Because that really then goes to show that, no, I didn't bring in these roaches. This is because of a structural issue that is the landlord's responsibility to fix. Like with mice, too. Like if there are holes in any sort of, in the walls or in the foundation, in the windows, that goes to show that it wasn't your responsibility that there is now this issue. That is really good advice, and I hope that is helpful to Brandon. Annette, will you read our next question, please? Sure. This one comes from Jennifer in West Bend. Jennifer says, I told my landlord that my basement has water leaking. I also swabbed for mold. He put something on the floor, and it didn't work. The mold swabs came back positive. What do I do? Okay, so I feel like we've got a bit of a pattern here with issues with absentee or non-responsive landlords. Brittany, do you have any different advice? What do you think? Just that mold is a complicated, it's very tricky. There's mold everywhere, right? And we're seeing more and more issues with mold, particularly after the August 2025 floods. We're seeing a lot of issues with mold, you know, in the basement and a lot of fallout from that. And there have been flooding events, you know, after we've experienced significant rain and that. So the biggest thing to be aware of when it comes to mold is finding the underlying issue. Is it a roof leak? Is it a basement leak? Is it a window issue? And then documenting that request to your building inspector, your local building inspector. So Jennifer's in West Bend, they should be able to come and document that. Putting that request in writing again to the landlord. The EPA, the state health department, and local health departments a lot of times have really good resources for tenants on understanding mold, ways to mitigate it. To minimize, you know, their health risk. So you noticed a lot more people after those floods, huh? Yeah. Yeah. I imagine a number of people are just now realizing it's not going away. The problems continue over time. Thank you for all those responses. Annette, who is next? Tony from Milwaukee. Tony would like to know, can the landlord raise your rent in retaliation for complaints? I'm glad we got a question about retaliation. What do you think, Abigail? Yeah, so kind of touched on this in an earlier question. It's really common for people to be afraid to make complaints because of the fear of retaliation. It's very real. And, you know, whether it's legal, you know, legal that a landlord does some sort of retaliatory conduct, or if it's just, you know, it feels retaliatory, it happens all the time. But complaining to your building inspector, complaining to your landlord, those things are explicitly protected conduct under Wisconsin law, the administrative code, and often your local ordinance, particularly the Milwaukee ordinance, like I was saying earlier. So, of course, it's... You know, there's a balancing test kind of involved there if you are behind on rent and your landlord files an eviction after you call the city. The court is unfortunately probably going to weigh the unpaid rent higher than... Your protected conduct of calling the building inspector. So it's always important, you know, to protect yourself from those risks, having things in writing. You know, we have resources that we've created with some of the community partners that we talked about, where we have letters that someone can write to their landlord, a template letter that literally says, these are the conditions, they haven't been fixed, I'm calling the building inspector, I'm abating my rent. And you cannot evict me, raise my rent, not renew my lease, turn off my utilities, because I did this. That would be retaliation. And if a landlord then went and did those things anyway, I'd bring that letter to court and say, This is retaliation. I did what I was supposed to do here and my conduct was protected. When you say put it in writing, could that just be like an email chain? Totally. Okay. So that would suffice rather than calling someone on the phone or stopping in to an office or text message, text message counts too. Yeah. So you could take screenshots of those, bring those to court and that could be used as writing as well. We should, we are. We recommend that people should always put things in writing. I see a lot that people will go down to an office and say things, you know, just a verbal conversation or even just say it on the phone. You should always follow up those conversations in writing. Yeah, really good advice there. Annette, let's move on to the next question. Yeah, so Camarion in Milwaukee asks, why is it? So many bad landlords do not want to fix their property. And I would extend this to say, how do they get away with not fixing their properties? Because we just hear about this all the time. Brittany, did you want to tackle this question? It's a difficult one, right? There are many, many factors involved. First and foremost is Milwaukee has a housing shortage. There's just a lack of supply available. And the supply that is available is older. It's crumbling. Thank Now you take the lack of supply and, you know, put it in the context of landlords. They exist for a profit. I mean, it's a business. It's a business model. And like any business model, you're seeking profits. But they do control the supply of a basic human need. you. Shelter is the fundamental need. We all need it. So when you put that into perspective, now you understand that the motivation behind a landlord and a tenant is different. A tenant is seeking their basic human need met. Landlord is seeking profit. So that puts a fundamentally complex power dynamic between landlords and tenants. There are some laws that we're talking about that are intended to protect tenants, but if they're not being enforced, if they're not being asserted, sometimes they are ignored, right? Right. It's quick for a landlord to file an eviction action against a tenant to remove somebody from the property if they fall behind on rent, but the remedies that a tenant has to get repairs done are very limited. So if you factor all of that together, I think that's what we're seeing here. The landlord has unilateral control and understanding of the condition of their property. We frequently see landlords that they know that there are issues and they do not disclose those issues before a tenant pays rent or pays security deposit, signs a lease. Do they have any rights in that situation? Sure. I mean, failure to disclose is absolutely a consumer protection violation. But how does a tenant prove that? It can be very difficult. Um, and. And so I think when you factor in all of these things, affordability is a crisis that's interwoven with poor housing conditions. So somebody experiencing poor housing conditions, they might have no other choice. They can't find affordable housing anywhere else, right? Right. Um, There are certain communities in Milwaukee that have just an extreme rate of eviction. Compared to the rest of the state, and that has a destabilizing effect on the entire community. When we're talking about, you know, high rates of eviction, low rates of homeownership, that ripples through that entire community. And so I think Abigail and I are really encouraged to see a lot of efforts around homeownership, you know, in communities as a way to stabilize and invest versus just, you know. Out-of-state, out-of-county landlords looking to make a profit in our communities. Yeah, I wish we could just say to people, don't go with that landlord. Go with someone else, because some of these landlords own. Many, many properties, and even if they have a history of evicting people, of not responding to complaints, you may not have a choice if there's a housing shortage. Yeah, absolutely. And there is actually a really phenomenal resource that's out there that tenants can look up. It's mkepropertyownership.com. You can put in your address and you can see who your landlord is, who they're tied to, their rates of eviction filings, their rates of building code violations. So we recommend that tenants, you know, do. Do what they can to screen their landlord as well. Yeah, so at least you're going into it with open eyes. All right, thank you. Annette, what's next? This one comes from Jessica in Milwaukee. She would like to know, can a landlord legally evict a low-income tenant or refuse to renew their lease if the issues stem from a neighbor stalking and harassing them? And the tenant has a permanent four-year restraining order against that neighbor. Under the Federal Violence Against Women Act, VAWA, does a tenant have full protection from an eviction over neighbor-to-tenant harassment, even if there was never an intimate domestic relationship between the two parties? What can a tenant do if a property manager ignores their VAWA emergency transfer request and pushes for an eviction anyway? So I don't know if Jessica is speaking for herself or someone else, but this sounds like a really challenging situation. Would the Violence Against Women Act protect her from eviction? So the Violence Against Women Act or VAWA is a federal law that in part provides housing protections for people living in. Units that are subsidized by the federal government and who are experiencing domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, or stalking to help keep them safe and reduce the likelihood of homelessness. So they are available to someone who is experiencing stalking, um, as in Jessica's case. Um, they don't have to be, you know, married to, to the perpetrator related living with in order to be protected by VAWA. Um, if, if they believe that their landlord is, you know, not compliant with VAWA or violating their rights, they can file a complaint with the, um, the federal department of housing and urban, uh, urban development. Um, and there's a link that Okay. What if they're not living in subsidized housing? Is that a little more complicated? You said that was affecting units subsidized? Yes. Okay. Yeah. So it would only apply to units that are covered under VAWA, which is, you know, federally subsidized housing. Okay. But Wisconsin law does have protections for victims of domestic violence and stalking harassment in our housing statutes. If the eviction is, you know, because of conduct related to domestic violence, that is a defense to an eviction. If the landlord knew or should have known that the person was a victim. So, while VAWA does only apply to, you know, federally subsidized housing, there are still some protections that Jessica could look into. Okay, that's really good to know. Annette, we're down to the last couple questions, aren't we? We are. This one comes from Monique in Milwaukee. She would like to know, is the court likely to remove an eviction due to a person being unable to find a place to live? Abrielle, I'm sure people come to you about wanting evictions removed from their records a lot. What do you have to tell Monique? Yeah, so this is a really tricky question, and it depends on where you live, when you're filing a motion, or rather when you're asking the court to seal. Because despite the fact that it's the same legal standard that the court has to Consider when they're determining whether they're going to take a record off of CCAP, off of the court record, they employ it differently in every county across the state of Wisconsin. Thank you, Johnson. But just to be general about it, the court has to employ a balancing test. So they have to balance the public's interest in open records, and they have to weigh that against the personal hardship that a tenant is facing. Because of having this eviction on the public court record. So it's really important for, you know, if Monique is asking the court to remove her name from CCAP, that she be very, very specific and very, very, I guess I should say, thorough. With why she needs this off of her record. So some of the general things that, you know, I like to include in these asks to the court to show hardship is, is the tenant homeless? Have they been denied housing because of this eviction on their record? Are they being charged higher application fees or larger security deposits? We've seen people being charged triple security deposits because of an eviction on their name. Even one that... It's fully dismissed, but it's just still lingering on the court record. Um, so So we always, you know, those sorts of questions. If there are children in the household, what time of year is it? Is it about to be winter and you're going to be facing housing stability, housing instability, I apologize, in these freezing Wisconsin temperatures? All of those things are really important to be able to tell the judge. So, I mean, I mean, I can go. I have a whole diatribe about this issue, you know, it's really unfortunate that, you know, it's viewed differently across the state in just such, you know, vastly different quantities of records that are removed from CCAP, whether you're in Milwaukee or in another. County. Fortunately, in Milwaukee, you know, in a large part because of a really, you know, concerted effort on our parts and our other community partners who do this work like Marquette and Legal Aid Society, it's kind of commonplace that judges will at least consider that there is a hardship that does often outweigh the public's interest. So, you know, so long as, Monique can... Prove to the court that this is really important for her health and safety and her ability to have stable housing for herself, her family, then, you know, so long as the eviction is, you know, either older or... ...wasn't actually followed through with, there's a good chance that, you know, in Milwaukee, the case could be sealed. But that's not the case in other counties in Wisconsin. You know, I ran some of our numbers for legal action statewide organization. So over the past two years in Milwaukee, we've helped 1,574 eligible evictions get off of CCAP. In our Madison service area, only 160. In La Crosse, 27. Green Bay, 16. Racine, 9. And then none in our Wausau service area because courts just view it so differently. That's really good to know because I think a lot of people think you just have to wait it out, right? There's a certain amount of time and then it will be dropped from your record. But it sounds like you're printing rejection letters and so on. Or do I have a misunderstanding about that? No, no, you're correct. So if there is a, if the eviction is is fully dismissed, then it will fall off of CCAP within two years. A lot of people don't have that amount of time. Okay. And also, if the eviction is granted or there's any sort of money judgment tied to it, it'll be on the record for up to 20 years. And people really don't have the time for that. So affirmatively asking is really important. You know, the simple fact is that having a clear eviction record is a prerequisite for having safe and affordable housing these days. You know, families who have evictions on their record, they're more likely to deal with these terrible conditions that we've been talking about, like lead paint, mold, these sorts of things. And it's also really detrimental to someone's physical and mental health as well. I mean, people facing housing stability research shows that they're over twice as likely to be suffering from depression and anxiety and whatnot. Thank Like I said, diatribe, but having these evictions on someone's record and being used by landlords for tenant screening is really just an abuse of open access to the courts. Yeah, you're passionate about your work. That's why we wanted you here in the first place. Do we have our last question, Annette? you. This is our last one from Tamika in Milwaukee. Tamika writes, I'm currently homeless. I paid my rent and security deposit and there were a lot of violation codes on the place. I want my whole refund back from my landlord. Okay. So we're going to end on a security deposit question. Abriel, did you want to take this one? Yeah. Yeah. So like we've been saying with our other security deposit questions, first things first, landlord has to either return the deposit or give you a written statement of what they're taking away from your deposit within 21 days of you leaving the property, turning in the keys, that sort of thing. So if the landlord, you know, if they do that, even then they have to Prove that you are legally responsible for the things that they're taking out of your deposit. So, like I said, unpaid rent, utilities, damages beyond normal wear and tear, things that aren't, you know, because of a natural disaster or something like that. Things that, you know, you caused to the property. If the landlord, you know, hasn't. done that. And if they can't prove that, then they've wrongfully withheld your deposit. And you really could, based on the administrative code, be entitled to double your security deposit. Even if there are some things in your deposit that were rightfully withheld, if there are things that you can prove are wrongfully withheld, or the landlord didn't return your deposit to you in in 21 days and you had given them a forwarding address and all of that. those things that you should have gotten back can also still be doubled. So it's really interesting, you know, we've talked a lot, I feel like a lot of Wisconsin laws are not super tenant friendly, and there aren't isn't a whole lot of enforcement mechanism. But I would say that the security deposit law is, you know, kind of on, like, uniquely tenant, pro tenant, I would say. So Based on, you know, what Tamika's saying about these violations and whatnot, it's really important for her to be able to see what the landlord is taking out of her deposit. Is it because of unpaid rent or is it because of... damages and are the damages to the property because of these violations that she's talking about? Or are they because of things that the landlord can prove that she did? So that's really kind of where the where the balance comes in is, you know, if she can, you know, prove like, I didn't do these damages. The DNS came out and said that there were all of these damages. So I'm not legally responsible for that. And there are other ways. We talked about failure to disclose these issues and misrepresenting the state of the property or not making repairs in a timely manner after a promise to repair. Those are other ways, kind of separate from the security deposit, that tenants can be assert their right to have their money back because of the, you know, the whole contractual not holding up their end of the bargain thing. Yeah, I think we got such a good range of questions today. Before we wrap up, is there anything you're surprised we didn't get asked or something that you see a lot that wasn't reflected in these questions? Or do you think this is a really good representation of what you're dealing with every day? I think this is a great representation. Thank you to the viewers. And thank you for having us. Yeah, we're always happy to take these questions. I think this is such a frustrating situation for people in particular, affecting their overall wellbeing. Having a safe place to live is one of our most basic needs. So I'm glad we could address these questions for the people who wrote to us. That's actually all that we have for today. If you would like to submit a question for a future Ask Contact Six segment or suggest a topic for us, you can go to fox6now.com and you can click on the blue Ask Contact Six button. Thank you to everyone who's Thank you, Brittany, Abriel, and my colleagues who make this possible, including our manager, Brian Graham, chief photographer, Cale Zimney, editor, Tim Primo, who is also on the video switcher today, and Craig Sweeney in graphics. I'm Jenna Sachs. Thanks for joining us.