Landlady caught in legal battle with senior tenants in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- There are legal wranglings in an Ellis Act eviction in San Francisco involving a landlady trying to remove tenants who cared for her elderly aunt.

The tenants took their fight to court Monday.

The Ellis Act says landlords can evict tenants but only if they take their property off the rental market. The landlady says she will but the tenants don't believe her.

"I would use the word greed as far as what is her total reasoning for actually getting rid of us," tenant Silvio Maniscalco said.

Maniscalco is 68 years old and blind in one eye. He's been a tenant at the North Beach apartment building for almost two decades.

He says he fits the profile of the kind of seniors the new apartment owner studies at UC Irvine.

Dr. Annlia Paganini Hill's specialty is the research of the elderly and diseases that lead to their deaths.

Lawyer Steve Collier represents the tenants. "The irony of a researcher on aging evicting seniors from their long-term homes," he said.

Paganini Hill inherited the apartment building three years ago when her ailing aunt died in her 90s.

Tenants say they treated her like family.

Theresa Flandrich began caring for her when she broke her arm. "I cooked for her, especially the first four months. I brought her breakfast and dinner each day," she said.

But now Paganini Hill, who lives in Southern California, wants Flandrich and Maniscalco, the remaining two tenants of the six-unit building, out.

"Her excuses for doing this, she wants a place where people can visit here," Collier said.

But the two tenants are convinced their new landlady will rent the units or make them Airbnbs.

Paganini Hill and her lawyer left the courthouse Monday without commenting.