Nine former tenants of Equity Residential, the nation’s fifth-largest apartment owner, announced this week that they’re going on a new kind of strike. According to the company, the former tenants still owe amounts ranging from $195 to more than $50,000 — but in order to spotlight what they say are predatory practices by corporate landlords, the tenants will collectively refuse to pay up.

For sisters Tay’Laur and Tai’Leah Paige, one missed rent payment triggered a chain of events that left them homeless and tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

Two years ago, when the Paige sisters came up short on rent for their North Hollywood apartment, they say Equity Residential moved rapidly to lock them out of their online payment portal and file for eviction. Even after they secured rental assistance that would’ve cleared their balance, they say the company refused to accept it, while escalating fees and back rent piled up during a months-long court battle. Soon after the sisters agreed to move out in August 2024, the company began attempting to collect nearly $50,000 in debt — and reported that debt to credit bureaus, a crushing barrier in their search for new housing. The sisters spent months living in their car in between stays at hotels and relatives’ homes.

Because their eviction record was sealed by the court, the sisters ultimately got the company to stop reporting the debt and are resuming their housing search. But this week, they announced plans to go a step further, launching a rent debt strike to protest the company’s practices. The strikers are joining a larger group of current tenants already withholding the opaque utility fees that they contend allow Equity Residential to shift its costs to renters and circumvent local rent control regulations. The strike was organized with support from the Debt Collective, the nation’s first union of debtors.