@Jennie Ballard Appreciate the insight - this is really helpful. The tenant has since cleaned up most of the mess in the backyard and I asked the neighbor in the adjacent unit to let me know if the dogs messing up the backyard continue to be an issue. The next-door neighbor told me their children could not use their portion of the backyard because of this tenant's dogs/mess for close to a month. Will keep monitoring that situation following the initial cleanup.
An update for the other folks on this thread:
2021-02-01 purchased Summary Process Summons and Complaint (eviction) form at Housing Court ($5 cash). It is a form you can only get from the court - they emboss it with a seal to prevent people from photocopying.
2021-02-01 filled out eviction form and submitted to Sheriff's Office to serve on tenant (Summary Process: $43.70 debit/credit - partly based on distance to location).
2021-02-04 Eviction form served on tenant by sheriff's deputy and return added (large sticker with deputy's sworn affidavit of service) to back of eviction form.
2021-02-04 filed eviction form/case with sheriff's return affidavit of service at Housing court ($135 check).
I had to politely argue with staff at housing court clerk's office to file my eviction case since this was a no-fault notice (no-fault 30-Day NTQ), filed Dec. 29, 2020. The new rules active as of 12/31/2020 in MA require landlords to provide COVID protections documentation to tenant when serving the NTQ and sign an affidavit under penalties of perjury that the NTQ served was in compliance with these rules and federal law (Affidavit of Compliance with Section 1(a) of Chapter 257 of the Acts of 2020. - An Act providing for Eviction Protections during the Covid-19 Pandemic Emergency) when submitting the eviction case.
I had to argue that this eviction/NTQ was a No-Fault (NOT for non-payment of rent as specified in affidavit) AND that it was served before the date the new rules went into effect. Initially the clerk's staff would not budge and advised 'we cannot file your case if you do not sign that affidavit.'
I had to ask for a supervisor who finally agreed to file without the COVID affidavit. They finally accepted the filing without the Affidavit after I stressed that it was a no-fault eviction, and that the NTQ was served prior to the new rules going into effect. Prior to the new rules, the burden was not on the landlord to provide Covid protections information to tenant, especially in no-fault NTQs - that was tenant's responsibility to find out about (from what I knew at the time).
My takeaway was that the rank-and-file staff at this housing court are either told to require the COVID affidavit from landlords in all eviction case filings now, regardless of the type of eviction or they were simply not aware of the nuance. I would like to err on the side that they did not know, however, the general vibe was that they did not like eviction filers and made it very difficult (or impossible if the staff had their way) to do it the correct way without potentially jeopardizing the case procedurally or worse, setting up oneself for perjury. When I asked them to show where they had the new rules in writing where they apply to No-Fault NTQs/evictions, they responded "it's on our website." It took talking to a supervisor to get them to agree to file without that affidavit.
Now waiting for the case to be filed and scheduled.
