As of now, though, they're out. A crew is on its way to board up the house and put up a chain-link barrier.
"It's good with these bank guys," Habecker says. "They know what to do now."
Habecker, a lifelong Sacramentan with an athletic build and short-cropped hair, climbs back inside his 2007 Ford Crown Victoria. He looks up the next address. This eviction has taken 13 minutes.
Evictions sparked suicides
At civil division headquarters on Power Inn Road, administrative commander Wanda Ferguson says the 100 eviction requests the department gets monthly are on top of as many as 600 monthly evictions it does for landlords who want to move out tenants who aren't paying their rent.
For Habecker, the weekday patrols through Natomas, Rio Linda, Del Paso Heights and North Highlands have been a front-row seat to the personal dramas behind the numbers.
Twice this year, he says, homeowners about to be evicted have committed suicide as he approached to do a lockout.
In another case, he said a fellow Sacramento deputy found a note in the home that told him where to find the foreclosed homeowner's body.
Habecker declined to say more. The cases received no publicity when they happened. And such tragic events are apparently rare.
"We haven't come across that," says Ellen Caraska, a Placer County Sheriff's Department staffer. "We never want to see that."
But Placer County, too, is seeing a "huge rise" in requests for tenant evictions when landlords lose homes to banks, says Caraska, an account technician in the civil division.
"Lincoln has a lot. Roseville has a lot," she says. "Rocklin, too. Those are our biggest areas."
By contrast, the Yolo County Sheriff's Department says its eviction requests have declined so far this year compared to the same time last year.
Quick, quiet exits common
Deputies, who first post an eviction notice on the home, come back on the sixth day to enforce it. Most often, the return is a nonevent.
"The majority of the time, I am finding no one there," Habecker said. Often that's because the bank offered the occupant a "cash for keys" deal. That's $1,000 or more to leave quickly and not trash the place.
By far, the largest number of cases involve landlord-tenant disputes, and they usually involve Habecker meeting with the landlord. At bank-owned homes, though, it's the real estate agent who will market it who Habecker speaks to.
At another home in Del Paso Heights, Habecker goes to the door, taps on the windows, announces himself.
"Sheriff," he calls out in a booming voice. "Anyone here? Sheriff's Department. Helloooo-oh."
Neighbors come out of nearby homes. They tell Habecker they saw the occupants leave the previous night.
That's what he wants to hear.
Habecker goes inside and calls out again. A locksmith is parked outside ready to change the locks.
The same day, Habecker was at a foreclosed home in Natomas posting a first-time notice: "Should you fail to vacate the premises within the allotted time, I will immediately enforce the writ by removing you from the premises," it read in part.
"From my experience, 90 percent of the time the people aren't there," said Warren Adams, a broker with Security Pacific Real Estate in Fair Oaks who is handling this listing. "You get a five-day notice … and most people move."
But he says he likes to go through the formal eviction process anyway. It prevents misunderstandings and makes it clear that the bank now owns the property.
"That piece of paper makes it pretty clear-cut," he says.
It usually is. But Habecker will be back in six days just to be sure.
Call The Bee's Jim Wasserman, (916) 321-1102. Read his Home Front blog at www.sacbee.com/blogs.
