CitywideLandlord-tenant records · 2003–2025Draft

Seattle’s housing complaints, as the City’s own record shows them.

36,106

of 56,258 landlord-tenant records the City published for 2003–2025

have no inspection date.

A blank date doesn’t prove no one came. It means the public record doesn’t say when anyone did.

40,540tenant complaints

9,961notices of violation

74.9%of complaints show no inspection date

545complaints with no district on record

Choose a district How we counted

Records 56,258 SDCI landlord-tenant records opened 2003–2025 Source City of Seattle code complaints & violations list, as enriched by STLCA on Jan 27, 2026 Fingerprint SHA-256 012d77ac41a4cde6… Limit from at least June 2024 until July 2025 the City’s inspection-date column held map locations, not dates; this page uses the dates the City published after that · details

What changed in 2018

Complaints rose. Inspection dates stopped showing up. Notices per complaint fell.

In 2016 the City opened 649 landlord-tenant complaints, and 14% of them show no inspection date. In 2018 it opened 2,808, and 81% show none. Notices of violation went from about 73 for every 100 complaints to about 14. By 2025 it was 5. The record itself does not explain the change.

Complaints opened each year

Landlord-tenant complaints, by the year they were opened

468

649

2,808

5,742

Complaints with no inspection date

Share of each year’s complaints

36%

14%

81%

91%

Notices of violation for every 100 complaints

Notices opened that year ÷ complaints opened that year × 100

2003–2016 · 14 years

6,922: complaints
12.6%: with no inspection date (873)
5,296: notices of violation, about 77 for every 100 complaints

2018–2025 · 8 years

32,523: complaints
89.5%: with no inspection date (29,123)
4,119: notices of violation, about 13 for every 100 complaints

2017 was the turning year: 1,095 complaints, 34% with no inspection date. Every complaint that shows no inspection date also shows no inspection result. Notices are counted by the year they were opened; the City’s list does not link each notice to a complaint, so this compares counts, not cases.

Show the numbers for every year

Year opened	Complaints	No inspection date	Share	Notices of violation	Notices per 100 complaints
2003	81	29	35.8%	31	38.3
2004	437	117	26.8%	390	89.2
2005	405	106	26.2%	338	83.5
2006	544	114	21.0%	411	75.6
2007	490	68	13.9%	452	92.2
2008	439	53	12.1%	374	85.2
2009	465	44	9.5%	359	77.2
2010	468	53	11.3%	352	75.2
2011	507	36	7.1%	346	68.2
2012	555	28	5.0%	397	71.5
2013	646	31	4.8%	460	71.2
2014	623	49	7.9%	470	75.4
2015	613	52	8.5%	443	72.3
2016	649	93	14.3%	473	72.9
2017	1,095	378	34.5%	546	49.9
2018	2,808	2,269	80.8%	401	14.3
2019	2,960	2,487	84.0%	465	15.7
2020	2,812	2,519	89.6%	627	22.3
2021	3,004	2,748	91.5%	942	31.4
2022	4,828	4,469	92.6%	720	14.9
2023	5,159	4,704	91.2%	335	6.5
2024	5,210	4,676	89.8%	343	6.6
2025	5,742	5,251	91.4%	286	5.0

What tenants reported

In their own words: evictions, mold, leaks and pests lead the list.

We searched the text of all 40,540 complaints for plain words like “mold,” “no heat” or “eviction.” This shows what tenants wrote about. It is not a finding that the problem was confirmed, and one complaint can mention more than one thing.

Eviction, lockouts, changed locks3,9609.8%
Mold, mildew, moisture3,8019.4%
Leaks, flooding, no water or hot water3,1647.8%
Rats, mice, roaches, bed bugs2,5626.3%
Unsafe, unsanitary, hazards1,6304.0%
No heat, furnace, freezing1,0882.7%
Doors, windows, locks, floors, ceilings7741.9%
Sewage, toilets, broken pipes6471.6%
Utilities shut off6281.5%
Harassment or threats5801.4%
No power, wiring, sparks5651.4%
Retaliation4161.0%
Broken or missing appliances1710.4%

24,684 complaints (60.9%) used none of these words, and 84 have no text at all. Words are matched whole, so “mice” does not count “pumice.”

Show the exact words searched

Eviction, lockouts, changed locks: evicted, eviction, evicting, eviction notice, illegal eviction, lockout, locked out, lock changed, kicked out, threatened with eviction, jceo, change locks
Mold, mildew, moisture: mold, mildew, black mold, moisture, water damage
Leaks, flooding, no water or hot water: no water, no hot water, water shutoff, water leak, leaking, flooding, no running water, plumbing
Rats, mice, roaches, bed bugs: rats, mice, rodents, roaches, cockroach, bed bugs, bedbugs, infestation, vermin
Unsafe, unsanitary, hazards: uninhabitable, unsafe, unsanitary, dangerous, hazard, fire hazard
No heat, furnace, freezing: no heat, no heating, heater broken, furnace, freezing, cold apartment
Doors, windows, locks, floors, ceilings: broken door, broken window, no lock, unfit building, structural, ceiling collapse, wall collapse, foundation, hole in floor, hole in ceiling, rotting floor, broken stairs
Sewage, toilets, broken pipes: sewage, raw sewage, toilet broken, no plumbing, pipes broken
Utilities shut off: utility shutoff, shut off, shut-off, turned off
Harassment or threats: harassment, harassed, harassing, threatening
No power, wiring, sparks: no power, no electricity, outlet sparks, sparking, ungrounded, exposed wiring, wiring, electric shock, live wire
Retaliation: retaliation, retaliating, retaliated
Broken or missing appliances: refrigerator broken, refrigerator is broken, fridge, no refrigerator, no stove, oven broken, no appliances

Seven districts

The same pattern in every district. District 7 has the fewest notices per complaint.

In every Council district, 7 to 8 in 10 complaints show no inspection date, and about 9 in 10 of those opened since 2018. District 7 had 14.7 notices of violation for every 100 complaints, the lowest in the city. District 2 had 32.2, the highest.

District	Records	Complaints	Notices of violation	Notices per 100 complaints	No inspection date, all years	No inspection date, since 2018
District 1	7,527	5,136	1,621	31.6	72.0%	89.5%
District 2	8,873	6,128	1,976	32.2	70.3%	88.5%
District 3	11,092	8,309	1,707	20.5	76.5%	90.1%
District 4	6,676	4,659	1,232	26.4	73.7%	89.6%
District 5	7,232	5,141	1,346	26.2	74.4%	89.4%
District 6	6,295	4,203	1,064	25.3	76.4%	89.9%
District 7	7,895	6,419	946	14.7	78.7%	89.1%
No district on record	668	545	69	Not placed in a district by the City’s data

Districts are as the City’s data records them. Click a district to open its dashboard.

P.I.E.R. cross-reference · Elevators

113 addresses show up three times: tenant elevator complaints, Fire Department rescue calls, and elevators without a current certificate.

STLCA matched three City sources by address: Seattle Fire Department elevator rescue calls, tenant complaints that mention an elevator, and the City’s elevator certificate list. These 113 addresses show up in all three.

113addresses in all three sources

835Fire Department elevator rescue calls, Jan 2020 to Jan 2026

316tenant complaints mentioning an elevator

80addresses with no certified unit on file at all

The 10 addresses with the most rescue calls

District 1: 11 · District 2: 19 · District 3: 21 · District 4: 14 · District 5: 11 · District 6: 8 · District 7: 29

Address	District	Rescue calls	Last rescue	Elevator complaints	Certified units on file	Units on file without a current certificate
913 S JACKSON ST	2	142	2025-06-21	1	0	2
308 4TH AVE S	2	52	2025-08-12	11	1	3
2024 3RD AVE	7	51	2025-06-22	3	1	2
1911 22ND AVE S	2	50	2026-01-22	2	1	3
9400 RAINIER AVE S	2	25	2025-12-02	4	1	1
4515 BROOKLYN AVE NE	4	23	2025-11-25	1	0	3
3621 33RD AVE S	2	21	2025-12-28	19	1	1
710 CHERRY ST	7	18	2025-03-10	1	0	2
1102 8TH AVE	7	16	2023-10-09	14	2	1
1600 2ND AVE	7	14	2025-06-20	5	0	5

Limits. The complaint count is a word search for “elevator,” so a few may be about something else. The certificate columns are a snapshot of the City’s list from January 31, 2026; a building’s status today can differ. A rescue call shows the Fire Department was sent, not why the elevator stopped.

P.I.E.R. · Property Intelligence Enforcement Registry

One address, every City record about it.

P.I.E.R. is STLCA’s cross-reference of City records by address. It connects complaints, rental registrations and permits at the same address. The elevator match above came out of it.

193,482Seattle addresses cross-referenced

248,719City complaint and violation records of every kind, not only landlord-tenant

278,226rental registration events, 2015–2025

1,005,340permit records

Status. 25,917 of these addresses have a rental registration on file. P.I.E.R.’s property flags are still being checked, so none are shown on this page yet.

The timeline

How Seattle got here

The laws, the Renters’ Commission, and the enforcement reporting the City was asked to do, year by year.

Open the timeline →