Ashland County, Wisconsin Eviction Risk: Low

Ashland County sits in the northernmost tier of Wisconsin eviction laws's Upper Chequamegon region, where Lake Superior eviction risk's shoreline meets a working-class rental market shaped by decades of forest-products employment decline and a persistent poverty rate of 22.7%. The county's overall eviction risk comes in at 3/10 (Low), placing it 12th out of 72 Wisconsin counties - solidly in the higher-risk of the state by risk level. With only 60 counties statewide carrying lower risk than Ashland, and 11 sitting above it, landlords and tenants here face meaningfully elevated pressure compared to the Wisconsin average of 3.1/10, even as the score technically falls in the Low tier. Scores across Ashland County's 11 tracked communities range from 2.5 to 3.5/10, a spread that reflects real differences in rental housing stress between the urban core and surrounding rural hamlets.

The county seat, Ashland, is by far the largest community with 7,902 residents and carries a risk score of 3.1/10 - above the county average and driven by a combination of below-average renter incomes, a 26.1% rent burden county-wide, and limited housing stock turnover. Average asking rent across the county runs just $729/month, which sounds affordable in isolation but puts real pressure on households given that 37.5% of the county's nearly 10,000 residents rent rather than own. Mellen, the second-largest incorporated place at 681 residents, scores 2.8/10. Smaller communities like Birch Hill (313 residents, 2.6/10) and Glidden reflect the pattern of rural hamlets where evictions are rare in absolute numbers but structurally easier to execute because tenants have fewer alternative housing options within reasonable distance.

The riskiest communities in the county are concentrated on and near the Bad River Reservation corridor. Odanah scores 3.5/10 and Franks Field scores 3.5/10 - both at the top of the county's range - followed by Bayfront at 3.4/10 and New Odanah at 3.3/10. These communities combine lower household incomes, limited access to legal representation, and the friction of overlapping federal and state jurisdictional questions that can complicate tenant recourse. Under Wisconsin law (Wis. Stat. § 704), landlords must provide just 5 days' written notice for non-payment of rent before proceeding to circuit court - one of the shorter cure windows in the Midwest. No local government in Wisconsin can enact rent control or just-cause eviction protections; state law explicitly preempts any such ordinance, meaning tenants in Ashland County have no local safety net beyond what Wis. Stat. § 704 and § 704.07 (the habitability statute) provide at the state level. Court filing fees run $95 to $175 and an uncontested eviction can clear in as few as 21 days, making Ashland County a jurisdiction where early intervention - paying arrears, curing a lease violation within the 14-day window, or negotiating directly with a landlord - is far more effective than contesting a case that has already been filed.

Ashland County's Low risk designation reflects a rental market under steady structural pressure: a poverty rate of 22.7%, an average rent burden of 26.1%, and a renter share of 37.5% of total households combine with Wisconsin eviction laws's landlord-tilted statute and a 5-day non-payment notice period to keep eviction risk meaningfully above neutral even at this score level. The county's score of 3/10 sits above the state average of 3.1/10, and the score spread of 2.5 to 3.5 across its communities shows that risk is not evenly distributed.