IN LATE NOVEMBER, RIAN DE LAAT REACHED THE END OF HER ROPE. OVER THE PAST YEAR, HER MOM HAD RECEIVED A CANCER DIAGNOSIS, HER DAD HAD UNDERGONE MAJOR SURGERY, AND de Laat, 44, had been laid off from her job at a biotech startup. But her chief concern was the fact that she was now responsible for the mortgage not only on her own home—a quaint one-story bungalow just south of Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood—but also on an investment property, an unassuming two-bedroom condo eight miles north in Shoreline. Her tenant, Ollie Aldama, had lost his job at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in mid-March, began struggling to make his utility payments and ultimately stopped paying his monthly rent of $1,800. By Thanksgiving, he owed de Laat more than $20,000.
State…