A rent strike is a method of protest commonly employed against large landlord

Landlord

A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant . When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner...

s. In a rent strike, a group of tenant

Leasehold estate

A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to land or property in which a lessee or a tenant holds rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord....

s come together and agree to refuse to pay their rent

Renting

Renting is an agreement where a payment is made for the temporary use of a good, service or property owned by another. A gross lease is when the tenant pays a flat rental amount and the landlord pays for all property charges regularly incurred by the ownership from landowners...

 en masse until a specific list of demands is met by the landlord. This can be a useful tactic of final resort for use against intransigent landlords, but carries the obvious risk of eviction

Eviction

How you doing???? Eviction is the removal of a tenant from rental property by the landlord. Depending on the laws of the jurisdiction, eviction may also be known as unlawful detainer, summary possession, summary dispossess, forcible detainer, ejectment, and repossession, among other terms...

 in some cases.

Historically, rent strikes have often been used in response to problems such as high rents, poor conditions in the property, or unreasonable tenancy demands; however, there have been situations where wider issues have led to such action.

Another type of collective action

Collective action

Collective action is the pursuit of a goal or set of goals by more than one person. It is a term which has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences.-In sociology:...

 concerning rental property is a landlords' strike, which is undertaken by a group of landlords. Such an action would be most likely to be undertaken when government tenancy policies (or enforcement thereof) are perceived to be patently unfair to the landlords. The most common means of action in this case would entail the landlords collectively refusing to rent out any vacant and soon-to-be-vacated properties, in hopes of provoking a massive housing shortage

Economic shortage

Economic shortage is a term describing a disparity between the amount demanded for a product or service and the amount supplied in a market. Specifically, a shortage occurs when there is excess demand; therefore, it is the opposite of a surplus....

 that would quickly compel the government to change the relevant policies.

Examples of Rent Strikes

Glasgow
During the Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 Land War

Land War

The Land War in Irish history was a period of agrarian agitation in rural Ireland in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. The agitation was led by the Irish National Land League and was dedicated to bettering the position of tenant farmers and ultimately to a redistribution of land to tenants from...

 of the 1880s and during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 when the landlords of tenement buildings in Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

 sought to take advantage of the influx of shipbuilders coming into the city and the absence of many local men to raise rents on the tenements' remaining residents. These women left behind were seen as an easy target and were faced with a rent increase of up to 25% and would be forcibly evicted by bailiffs if they failed to pay. As a result of this rent increase, there was a popular backlash against the landlords and a rent strike was initiated. This was led by Mary Barbour

Mary Barbour

Mary Barbour was a Scottish political activist, local councillor and magistrate who was closely associated with the Red Clydeside movement in the early 20th century....

, who with her "army" would forcibly prevent the bailiffs from entering the tenements and would pelt them with flour bombs. The strikes soon spread and became such an overwhelming success, moving out from Glasgow and on to other cities throughout the UK, that the government, on 27 November 1915, introduced legislation to restrict rents to the pre-war level.

The Leeds rent strike in 1914
In early January 1914, around 300 tenants living in the Burley area of Leeds went on rent strike against a 6d increase in rents imposed by the landlords. The rent increase had been called for by the Leeds branch of the Property Owners Association. At a mass meeting of the tenants on Sunday January 10, the rent strike organisers called for a city-wide protest against the increase. A week later, the Leeds Trades Council hosted a Labour conference intended to organise mass rent resistance. A Tenants Defence League was formed with a central committee of nine and a mission to spread the rent campaign across the city through a series of public meetings and neighbourhood canvassing. The strike lasted eight weeks. In the end, committee members had been evicted and blacklisted from renting any other home in the area.

Highland Land League

Highland Land League

The first Highland Land League emerged as a distinct political force in Scotland during the 1880s, with its power base in the country's Highlands and Islands. It was known also as the Highland Land Law Reform Association and the Crofters' Party...

Scotland 1880's

New York City Rent Strike in 1907
In 1907, in response to rising rents due to housing shortages 10,000 families in lower Manhattan went on rent strike. One of the primary organizers was 16-year-old Pauline Newman

Pauline Newman (labor activist)

Pauline M. Newman was an American labor activist.Born in Kaunas, Lithuania, Newman was the daughter of Jewish-American immigrants and was raised in New York City. Like many poor immigrants, she went into the workforce at a young age. In 1901, she started working in a shirtwaist factory, the...

, housewives and women working in the garment industry. It lasted from December 26 until January 9 and led to about 2,000 families in having their rents reduced.

Barcelona mass rent strike 1931
between 5,000 and 100,000 people were out on rent strike

New York City rent strike over repairs
In the winter of 1963-1964, a rent strike erupted in Harlem. It was led by Jesse Gray

Jesse Gray

Jesse Gray was a leader of rent strikes in Harlem in the 1960s and served as a New York State Assemblyman from 1972 to 1974.-Biography:...

, a tenant organizer there since 1953. The focus of the strike was not rent levels but poor maintenance.

Northern Ireland
During "the troubles

The Troubles

The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...

" (1960's-1980's) in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

, participants in the Civil Rights movement

Civil rights movement

The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...

 withheld rent and council rates from local councils in protest at internment

Internment

Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...

.