bottom line, if no lease exists or if a lease exists (even if expired) but does not specifically address rent increases, according to state law a landlord can only increase the rent by a percentage of the total rent charged, and depending on what the amount of the increase is the landlord must give the tenant either thirty or sixty days written notice of that increase. and then even if the renter defaults and stops paying rent, the eviction process can take many months. this is a simplistic answer. if i recall correctly there's specific information available on the stateu2019s website. in short, in some circumstances it may be possible to pursue this path, but it would likely take quite some time to remove the tenant from the property because state law tends to favor tenantu2019s rights and because it permits only small increases in rent (a landlord charging, say, $1000 a month in rent could not simply increase that rent to $2500+ a month in an attempt to get the tenant to leave the property).