The Tenants Protection Association was called to a house at Taranaki Street on the Saturday during Easter. The landlady and some assistants had taken all the belongings of the tenants and dumped them on the veranda and the front lawn of the house. Under the watchful eye of two constables they had carried a pregnant girl, one of the tenants, and put her on the street.

The tenants were three and a half weeks behind in their rent, although they say they had tried twice in the last week to pay some of the money to the landlady who lives just round the corner in Hanky Street, but both times no-one had been home. The tenants had received no notice of any kind, and because of this the landlady's action was completely illegal.

When TPA members arrived, the house was barricaded by the landlady and her helpers — her brother and her 17-year-old son. They had moved in bedding and food in preparation for a seige, and jammed planks up against the doors. The tenants were standing outside. While a TPA solicitor, George Rosenberg, tried to talk to the people inside the house through a mail-hole in the front door and explain that the eviction was illegal, another member phoned the police.