Rent on the rise: Woman struggles to keep home

By Rebecca Cardenas

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    MURFREESBORO, Tennessee (WSMV) — A Murfreesboro woman said she was suddenly notified her lease won’t be renewed and is faced with finding a new place to live amid a rapidly rising rent market.

“The letter says, ‘We have decided not to renew your lease,’” Rose DuSeigneur read. “It doesn’t say why.”

DuSeigner is a five-year tenant of The Cove at Center Point apartments in Murfreesboro. Tuesday, she learned she has to be out by September. “This puts me in a very difficult situation.”

To be clear, DeSeigneur was not evicted. According to an attorney with the Legal Aid Society, Tennessee landlords are entirely within their rights to not renew a tenant’s leasing agreement, so long as they don’t discriminate against a protected class.

“This is actually the third time this has happened to me in Murfreesboro, under the same circumstances,” DuSeigner explained, now faced with finding a new place to live in Murfreesboro, where rent has gone up 19% year-over-year. An average one-bedroom apartment costs $1,300 a month, according to Rent.com.

She said it might force her to close the doll repair business she runs out of her home. “To have think about disrupting my life-disrupting, my business, even temporarily,” DuSeigneur said. “Knowing what things are like around here, and knowing how easy it is for property owners, landlords, to just throw someone out for no reason, the thought of being in another situation like this, where the same thing could happen.”

We reached out to the leasing office to ask them why they did not renew DuSeigner’s lease. They declined to comment.

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