TACOMA, Wash. — From car tires slashed, car windows busted, and fish oil doused in cars, several tenants of one landlord in Tacoma, Qifan Shi, say these are Shi’s attempts to intimidate them and force them out of their home.
Jaylene Landreth says her issues started after she missed rent at her Tacoma home. She had given birth three weeks before the start of the month and she says her FMLA (paid family leave) was late.
On the eighth of the month, she found there was no running water to her home.
“We had no running water in a home with a three-week-old baby and two six-year-olds,” Landreth said.
Landreth is one of a dozen current and former tenants as well as neighbors KIRO 7 spoke to about Shi.
We found 29 properties in Pierce County and Federal Way under Shi’s name. Assessor records from King and Pierce County showing the total purchase price for all properties is more than $8.8 million.
All tenants told KIRO 7 Shi had them pay in cash.
“You’re supposed to drop your money off,” Landreth said, saying she never got a receipt for her over $2,000 in rent each month.
When her water was turned off, she reached out to her property manager and Tacoma Public Utilities. Logs from TPU she gave KIRO7 showed she was up to date on her bill and that TPU hadn’t turned off her water.
“We let [Shi] know we will be taking legal action for not having running water,” Landreth said, which Washington law allows them to do.
After that, the water became the least of her worries.
A few days later, she and her husband say they heard someone at the electrical box. They scared them off and found the box charred and a message written on a piece of plywood.
“You have 24 hours to move out,” it read.
“That same night, my driver window of my GMC was broken out. The next night, all of the wires to my home giving us power, heat, lights, and a stove. All of those were cut,” Landreth said.
She moved her family out to a relatives house in East Pierce County. Before she did, she moved her security camera to one of the outlets in the house that still had power. Later that week, she got a notification from the camera, opening it up to see a man who does maintenance for Shi inside her home, but to her, it didn’t seem like he was there to fix the water.
“They walked into my living room, looked right up at my camera. And then a minute later, all of my cameras--all three of my cameras-- go dead,” Landreth said. “They had removed my front door. They had removed the windows in both of my children’s bedrooms and in my living room and my bedroom.”
They returned to their relatives’ home, thinking they were safe. Over several days the next week, cameras on the home they were staying at caught a person smashing their windows, slashing their tires, and throwing a brick that had “quit” written on it through their window.
“It’s chilling to know that someone can find you 40 minutes away from where you are,” Landreth said.
Earlier this year, another woman told KIRO 7 that a brick was thrown through her window, reading “I’m back around,” just after she had a dispute with Shi over trying to remove a tenant from a home she was renting.
“They asked that I say he tried to sexually assault me,” the woman said, pointing out when she refused, “Shi started getting more threatening and he started making me feel that I wasn’t going to be safe in the home.”
She called out from work, took videos of her things, and waited until a friend could help her move.
“I lived in complete fear for three days,” the woman said.
Dozens of police reports KIRO 7 News reviewed have been made at Shi’s properties and two protection orders have been filed against him from former tenants. In one of the protection orders, the court notes “[Shi] sent individuals to [tenants] home to turn off [tenant’s] water.”
KIRO 7 tried to call Shi several times to ask about the tenant’s issues.
He didn’t agree to a phone or in-person interview.
When KIRO 7 attempted to ask questions of him at his home, Shi ran away, jumping in a car and speeding away.
Tacoma police say they have a case into Shi, but cannot comment on open investigations.
The city of Tacoma reports its Tax and Licensing office is also looking into Shi.
Landreth moved out of her relatives’ home after the incidents in front of their home, relying on a housing voucher to stay in a motel. With that running out, she and her kids are facing homelessness and hoping people can support them.
A GoFundMe has been set up to help.
“You should be able to like find a rental, have it be a safe space. Maybe you’re late on rent. Yeah, that’s annoying, I understand. But like, life happens. There are routes that you go down to handle that the proper way,” Landreth said.