Curbing Their Unease

Gallery

Clearing House

When eviction strikes, it's not just the residents who need to leave -- their belongings need to go, too.

» LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

'They're Putting Us Out'

The eviction on Buckingham Green, and all others like it, is essentially commissioned chaos.

Twenty workers, the number required by law for house evictions in Prince George's County, flood inside and grab things -- mismatched things, armfuls of randomness -- and carry them to the door.

An end table and a toaster. A chair and an ironing board. In the airy, granite kitchen, three women of All Seasons sweep the contents of cupboards into black garbage bags. The whole house is filled with clinking and scraping and grunting, as crew members in jeans and baseball caps swarm the rooms.

The tenant, a middle-aged man wearing a scarf and leather jacket, stands outside on the driveway, watching the gutting of the house that was just his. He's not supposed to go inside after the deputies escort him from the property.

"They're putting us out," he says to someone -- his wife? -- on his cellphone. Then he's mute, deflated-looking, like a popped balloon. He declines to answer a reporter's questions. After a little while, he takes off in his car. What man can stand by and watch the relentless and inevitable emptying of his life?

Tenants rarely pack for an eviction, says Pulliam. "They sit there and assume that at the last minute some miracle's going to happen. I'm all about religion, but . . ." The tenant of this house owed nearly $20,000 in rent, the property owner in New York tells Pulliam over the phone.

And outside, the pile of stuff is beginning.

A terra-cotta vase.

A red velvet ottoman with gold tassels.

A set of four matching dining chairs with slender wooden legs, set up on the lawn as if to receive guests.

It's impossible to look away.