The Ellis eviction is a quandary for landlords. On one hand, they place severe restrictions on a building and lower its value immediately. On the other hand, they're easy to do.
 
One misuse of the Ellis Act is the Ellis bluff. Ellis evictions have received a fair amount of attention in the media and the media has pointed out how easy they are to do, likening Ellis to the landlord's "ultimate weapon against rent control." Thus there has been a fair amount of hysteria and fear created when landlords utter the Ellis word.

 Landlords who want to evict but don't want the Ellis restrictions placed on their building are utilizing Ellis as a threat. It ranges from a verbal threat to do an Ellis to landlords who actually issue Ellis eviction notices and then claim the tenants left "voluntarily" (when the tenants move based on the notice). Usually in this latter scenario, the landlord will get the evicted tenants to sign a waiver of their right to return at the same rent and an agreement not to sue for Ellis Act violations. Landlords then claim they are free to re-rent at any rent.
 Tenant groups are warning tenants facing an Ellis that the first step is to ascertain whether or not the eviction is a bluff. This means the tenant must fight back and not move based on the notice or accept the first settlement offer a landlord makes. Most effectively, it means fighting the eviction in court since many landlords take the position that an Ellis eviction is not really an Ellis eviction until it moves into court.
 Probably more people have been evicted under the Ellis bluff than by a full fledged Ellis eviction, which is problematic in that this is clearly an abuse of Ellis aimed at circumventing rent control.