“Each room had its own particular style. It was just so beautiful, I wish you could have seen it,” Chambers said. "Now all I have to show is how hard I have fallen."
When moving day came, Chambers spackled the holes her sons had accidentally left in the walls with a putty knife.
Hours later, her son, Michael, who is legally disabled and bipolar, punched another hole in the freshly repaired wall.
"It was a lot for my two kids to understand what was happening," Chambers said. "Those were the hardest days. Not having any help to move out. The triple degree heat."
Chambers hoped she might avoid eviction if she reached a settlement. Pandemic restrictions in Washington caused the eviction process to drag on for seven months.
She applied for emergency rental assistance from King County. Her landlords received $19,792.93 of back rent, legal fees and court charges – every penny she owed.
However, an eviction still appears on Chambers' record because potential landlords are able to see all filings, as opposed to only the outcome. Landlords typically use third-party tenant screening companies to filter through prospective applicants. These companies pull information including expunged or sealed criminal records. Companies can also make mistakes if applicants have the same name.
Melody Rivers, 59, was evicted from her home in 2017. After finding out she had precancerous Polyps and had to have emergency surgery, she was laid off from her job shortly after. When she came home from her surgery, she had received a three-day notice to pay her rent, and after pleading her case in court, was evicted from her home.
Similar to an arrest record, an eviction record can follow tenants for decades, drastically limiting their opportunities to start over.
In some states like Washington, tenants can receive an order from the court that stops screening companies from showing a prior eviction. According to a copy of Chambers' signed May 11, 2021 settlement reviewed by USA TODAY, her landlords agreed to such an order in exchange for receiving what they were owed.
The order has still not been filed almost a year later.
Chambers said she has called her landlords several times but they have been unresponsive.
Chambers' landlords declined to be included in this story.
Chambers' options were already restricted by her income. Since 2021, rent prices have skyrocketed 14% nationwide and 25% in Seattle.
Chambers could only move to one place. She had a friend who knew a guy who rented apartments. No credit check. No backgrounding. She signed a two-year lease for an apartment in north Seattle for $2,000.
Five months after the eviction, Chambers, who once prided herself in living in a magazine-worthy house, was living without working heat, a dishwater or hot water in the upstairs bathroom. Moving boxes from the old house were stacked floor to ceiling in the living and dining rooms of Chambers' apartment. Dishes were piled in the sink. She had taped the unfinished stair railing together to make it safer.
Five months after Nicole Chambers' eviction, boxes and furniture fill up the living room of the only apartment she was able to find with a fresh eviction on her record. The apartment has no heat, no hot water in one of the bathrooms and no yard.
Some nights Chambers was so exhausted she'd fall asleep immediately on the mattress that's on her bedroom floor. Others, she would stay awake, ruminating with her nine-year-old chihuahua Estelle next to her about the home she had lost.
On the day before she moved out of the green house, Chambers sat down to drape her beloved living room furniture in bubble wrap. There was a four-piece Persian set with a sofa and three throne chairs. The chairs had gold, hand-carved roses overlaid with lush fabrics and had cost her $7,000. Chambers lovingly touched each item, the possessions she had worked so hard for.
"This home in Auburn was proof that I had made it, that I had gotten out and now everything was gone," Chambers said.
"We have to leave the oven on to warm up the house," Chambers said.
Chambers had turned to the gig economy. First, as an Instacart shopper and then on Handy, to clean houses. Inflation began to creep in. Her car was repossessed twice. She borrowed money from her dad in Alabama. There's $5,000 worth of jewelry at the pawn shop — all to never miss a rent payment again.
"All of this stuff snowballed after I moved out, everything became a hassle to pay," said Chambers.
“Each room had its own particular style. It was just so beautiful, I wish you could have seen it,” Chambers said. "Now all I have to show is how hard I have fallen."
When moving day came, Chambers spackled the holes her sons had accidentally left in the walls with a putty knife.
Hours later, her son, Michael, who is legally disabled and bipolar, punched another hole in the freshly repaired wall.
"It was a lot for my two kids to understand what was happening," Chambers said. "Those were the hardest days. Not having any help to move out. The triple degree heat."
Chambers hoped she might avoid eviction if she reached a settlement. Pandemic restrictions in Washington caused the eviction process to drag on for seven months.
She applied for emergency rental assistance from King County. Her landlords received $19,792.93 of back rent, legal fees and court charges – every penny she owed.
However, an eviction still appears on Chambers' record because potential landlords are able to see all filings, as opposed to only the outcome. Landlords typically use third-party tenant screening companies to filter through prospective applicants. These companies pull information including expunged or sealed criminal records. Companies can also make mistakes if applicants have the same name.
Melody Rivers, 59, was evicted from her home in 2017. After finding out she had precancerous Polyps and had to have emergency surgery, she was laid off from her job shortly after. When she came home from her surgery, she had received a three-day notice to pay her rent, and after pleading her case in court, was evicted from her home.
Similar to an arrest record, an eviction record can follow tenants for decades, drastically limiting their opportunities to start over.
In some states like Washington, tenants can receive an order from the court that stops screening companies from showing a prior eviction. According to a copy of Chambers' signed May 11, 2021 settlement reviewed by USA TODAY, her landlords agreed to such an order in exchange for receiving what they were owed.
The order has still not been filed almost a year later.
Chambers said she has called her landlords several times but they have been unresponsive.
Chambers' landlords declined to be included in this story.
Chambers' options were already restricted by her income. Since 2021, rent prices have skyrocketed 14% nationwide and 25% in Seattle.
Chambers could only move to one place. She had a friend who knew a guy who rented apartments. No credit check. No backgrounding. She signed a two-year lease for an apartment in north Seattle for $2,000.
Five months after the eviction, Chambers, who once prided herself in living in a magazine-worthy house, was living without working heat, a dishwater or hot water in the upstairs bathroom. Moving boxes from the old house were stacked floor to ceiling in the living and dining rooms of Chambers' apartment. Dishes were piled in the sink. She had taped the unfinished stair railing together to make it safer.
Five months after Nicole Chambers' eviction, boxes and furniture fill up the living room of the only apartment she was able to find with a fresh eviction on her record. The apartment has no heat, no hot water in one of the bathrooms and no yard.
Some nights Chambers was so exhausted she'd fall asleep immediately on the mattress that's on her bedroom floor. Others, she would stay awake, ruminating with her nine-year-old chihuahua Estelle next to her about the home she had lost.
On the day before she moved out of the green house, Chambers sat down to drape her beloved living room furniture in bubble wrap. There was a four-piece Persian set with a sofa and three throne chairs. The chairs had gold, hand-carved roses overlaid with lush fabrics and had cost her $7,000. Chambers lovingly touched each item, the possessions she had worked so hard for.
"This home in Auburn was proof that I had made it, that I had gotten out and now everything was gone," Chambers said.
"We have to leave the oven on to warm up the house," Chambers said.
Chambers had turned to the gig economy. First, as an Instacart shopper and then on Handy, to clean houses. Inflation began to creep in. Her car was repossessed twice. She borrowed money from her dad in Alabama. There's $5,000 worth of jewelry at the pawn shop — all to never miss a rent payment again.
"All of this stuff snowballed after I moved out, everything became a hassle to pay," said Chambers.