Over the weekend, at least three tenants conducting a rent strike at an East Portland building received formal notices they needed to pay up or face immediate eviction.

The deadline for two of the formal 72-hour notices was Tuesday. A third has a deadline of Wednesday.

The tenants told WW that their rent strike was more necessity than political theater. Facing 40 to 45 percent rent hikes, they say they're saving up to move.

Last week, A&G Rental Management, which oversees the property, told the three renters who hadn't paid October's rent that they could use their security deposits to pay the month's rent, even if the deposits weren't sufficient to cover the full balance.

"We are working really, really hard to accommodate the tenants' transition," Erlin Taylor of A&G Rental Management told WW last week.

The tenants had never formally agreed to the offer.

A spokesman for the company said this week the landlord meant something different by trying "to accommodate" the tenants—and were discouraged by protests from Portland Tenants United, a renters-rights group that helped create a tenants association at the building.

“They’ve been working with all of the tenants from day-one to come to an agreement,” writes John McIsaac, a spokesman for A&G, in an email. “Problem is, every time they think they have an agreement, PTU starts another demonstration.”

Members of PTU, which has launched a "strike fund," for tenants accompanied a Ash Street tenant to eviction court on September 12th after camping out at the landlord's house the night before. That case settled before a trial.

PTU's Margot Black called the statement from McIsaac "typical union busting" and said tenants won the offer of not having to pay October rent only after protests.