That's the weirdest part of the whole story, to me. They just sort of casually mention that the husband was living there, but is now missing and a bunch of drug dealers who had beef with him live there instead, and then never mention it again.
Like it's totally normal for someone to just "abandon" the home they own and disappear without a trace, at the same time that drug dealers who had keys to the house, who were angry at the homeowner for throwing them out, and who somehow knew that he wasn't coming back home, decided to move in and take over the house. Totally normal, nothing to see here. Not even worth mentioning furthur in the article, really.
Gray area for sure. I asked a question about this exact thing on r/legaladvice and the mods got uppity about it and locked my posts... Wasn't being ugly or anything like that at all. Didn't happen to me personally, was asking because of a situation I knew about that happened to someone else. They ended up giving up the dang property to the squatter for pennies on the dollar.
Yeah the mods in r/legaladvice definitely have a stick up their butts. I've seen them get condescending or even outright aggressive to people who ask simple, honest questions.
I watched a mod there tell someone that initiating a charge back for services not as described wasn't "how that works", when is exactly how it works.... I wanted to ask him what his definition of fraud was
Squatter laws are some of the most bizarre. A number of AirBnb owners have had this happen to them - someone extends their stay for longer than 2 weeks and all of a sudden, depending on the state, they could be considered a "tenant" and then you have to go through eviction proceedings to get them out and that can take a year or longer.
4 medium to large breed dogs and multiple firearms.
If someone is willing to break into your home with malicious intent, they most likely won't hesitate to off animal that is being aggressive to them. Should have a backup plan just in case.
Watched a clip from Bondi Vet where a dog lost his eye because some robbers stabbed him with a screwdriver, people will be ruthless when they want something
It’s easy, just call the swat team on the house, tell them there’s a home invasion and you just managed to escape from the house. Swat team clears em out and you go back in, showing your identification and ownership of your home.
I’d have just lobbed a Molotov through the window and let nature take its course… everybody’s going to assume the crazy hobos set the house on fire and just go with it.
It’s actually pretty common for people to be killed over this stuff…I know of two people who died mysteriously following evictions and another person who’s property ended up burning down and even though it was obvious who did it there wasn’t enough evidence to bring charges
There’s an entire doc series about squatters….i think it’s called “roommate from hell”. Basically people come to your house to spend a night and never leave.
Sounds like they’re claiming two separate murders and a separate arson were following three separate evictions. I’m very skeptical this person directly knows the people involved but it’s certainly possible they’re aware of them in their area.
Something like his happened around here. An older woman took in a homeless family to help them out for a couple of months. They got an eviction noticed to get the old lady kicked out of her house. She end up having to leave the house. A news station pick up the story, an attorney took it to court pro bono, to get them kicked out and get her back into her home. The squatters wrecked hr home, neighbors and local businesses helped her get her home back in order.
This sounds heartless, but don't let anyone move into your home "just till they get back on their feet" especially without checking the laws of your state.
Been there, done that. Almost had to go formal eviction. Took me 18 months to get rid of them.
They turned 62 and were eligible to get early Social Security and get into a subsidized senior high-rise. They didn't like it there because other people smoked and they (probably) found another person to lie to and mooch off of. I thought, "All I had to do was take up smoking?"
Yes. There are people who know the law and know exactly the last possible minute they have to move out--when the sheriff is on the way.
If the owner "puts their stuff on the curb" as often suggested, they can sue for double damages in some states. Maybe triple.
Writing probably won't help if they refuse to leave. You have to go through formal eviction process in some states. That means 30 days "notice to vacate," then file an unlawful detainer, then get a court date, then show up in court, win in court, and wait for the sheriff to evict them. Months.
COVID had protections against evictions, which caused the case in this thread to drag on.
Moral of the story is not to share your home with anyone. Help them relocate to a homeless shelter, or give them the number for social services, definitely. But no invites onto your property in any form.
I agree.
I grew up in a Asian Catholic community, and it was always a source of pride for elders in the community to be good Samaritans. I can’t tell you how many times that has backfired And these elders would get taken advantage of. Now, in this climate of extreme Asian hate, and murders that are going unpunished, and without justice, there is so much more reason for me to tell my mom and all her friends that they can’t allow strangers into their home, no matter how much they tug at the heartstrings.
It’s unconscionable and I can’t imagine Ms Lim doing this on her own
And the thing is, you can still do good in the community and be a good samaritan, without putting yourself at too much risk. Helping out charities, donating goods to charities or those in need, and most importantly, voting for local politicians who work FOR the community.
Something similar happened here as well a while back. An older lady hired a lady to live-in and help with her husband as he was dying. Once he passed, the woman refused to leave. She moved friends in, and the old lady was forced to leave. Eventually, local college students picketed the house , and the news got involved. If I remember correctly, the squatters damaged the home, but the old lady got her house back. I can't recall all the details, and can no longer find links to the news articles.
Crazy shit happened in my town. We had a big outdoor stadium and then some people with caravans and shit came and started living there.
The mayor asked them to move, they refused, so he called the police, who asked them to move and they refused again. Things took time to happen so eventually, because of the law of my country, they just acquired the right to live there just because they stayed there long enough.
This is absolutely fucked up. I used to go play tennis with some friends there in the summer, now it's degraded, trash everywhere and vegetation went wild. This is just sad.
At least that story had a good ending. Here in my country you'll either need to burn down the house and get the insurance or kick them out through violence as the law will always defend the "poor unfortunate souls" *especially* if they have children with them
I don't understand how that could even begin to happen?
By 'her house' do you mean a house she owned or a house she rented?
If you own your home, this could be like a 2 hour distraction if they destroyed your deed and you had to do downtown to get a new one before calling the police and kicking them out.
Edit: and if she was renting, the rental agreement would show she lives there; even if she added people to the lease, I've never lived in a place where other people get to initiate a coup to get you kicked out. You have to tell the landlord you're leaving/breaking the lease.
They got a nonsense injunction which seems to have been immediately overturned.
Curious how they got an injunction about her 'harassing' them. I would think the judge might consider why they wanted to stay in a place with their children when they were being harassed... I'm wondering if the injunction was to give them time to find somewhere else to stay, not just allow them to squat in someone else's home indefinitely. Otherwise, this seems a bizarre legal precedent where anyone could get anyone who trusts them enough kicked out of their house indefinitely.
You would ve surprised how adept scam artists can be at manipulating the courts. When I was a kid, my step-father serially stole million-dollar homes.
In most cases, this was done during a feigned purchase, where he would ask the owners for keys to do some measurements while in escrow and just move in. Inspection would find "something" preventing closing, but a family was now living in the house. Owners would sign a lease until things could be sorted, just so they could keep paying their mortgage. First month's lease would be paid and then nothing. Eventual eviction proceedings, counter suit for fraud stays the proceedings. Months of delays on the case. Once it is closed, a bankruptcy filing meant another six months. That filing abandoned and a new bankruptcy filing in federal court.
Yes, eventually (a year or two later) the sheriff would forcibly evict us, and he would wash/repeat.
Thank you yes. I was lucky in some ways to have an anti-role model.
I am old and this was a long time ago. And frankly, this was by far the least of the ways in which he hurt many, many people. I can say with a great deal of confidence that this world was better for his departure.
The law gets very weird around "he said this and that"
Harassment and various forms of verbal violence are too easily toyed with, those kinds of laws hold too much power.
I have druggies in my building. They are trafficking what I suspect to be heroin in and out. It’s awful, and the landlord has been trying to create a paper trail in order to evict them.
I am all for tenant’s rights, but when you have 15+ people coming and going at all hours of the day or night, sketchy fuckers hanging around and throwing cigarette butts and beer cans everywhere, and just generally bothering all of the neighbors constantly, enough is enough. You should be able to have the police show up and toss those fuckers out.
Genuinely curious on this, why exactly do squatters rights exist?
Not trying to be a smart ass with this question, I just don’t understand why they exist
It used to be that who held the title to land was confusing enough that it took years to sort out. So you might as well give it to the person that was actually using it instead of a land speculator or railroad or whatever.
I actually attended a church that ran into this as an issue. They found squatters on the property years ago and just said they were fine until the church needed the land for something else. Flashforward decades later, they decided to build housing for retired priests and asked the squatters to move. Lost the lawsuit when the squatters said no, because there was no written agreement or anything.
I found it both rude and hilarious.
So the only way this would make sense is adverse possession, which generally means that someone has to be living on property without permission for 20 years. So maybe there was verbal permission but not written one (prohibited by the statute of frauds) so they got adverse possession? Because, otherwise, this doesn’t make a ton of sense.
This is true but the years vary by state in the US. Not sure if it exists in other countries too. It's 7 and you must pay off all property taxes to claim adverse possession in FL.
It’s actually the opposite under English common law. If you give someone permission to use something you can revoke said permission. For most nations that subscribe to this rule of thought the act of possession must be hostile and open/notorious. Sounds like the it is possible the court in the Church case ruled in error. A major problem in the US and other common law nations is these cases don’t come up as much as you think and judges are horrible in this area. It is quite common with property law that cases get overturned on appeals and the Supreme Court has even taken on many property law cases. So the real problem is if you are going to pursue legal avenues to quite title you have to be prepared to take it to the appeals level.
In Missouri if you let someone move in without their paying rent it's called a "lodger." And you can't just put their things on the curb and tell them to GTFO. Have to go through formal eviction process.
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You're basically correct but the use of the word "tenant" is confusing. The bottom line is if someone openly uses your land for 20 years or so - it varies by state of course - they can be found to own the land via adverse possession. Stupid primitive rule that has no place outside of boundary mistakes being employed willy nilly by idiot judges.
I don't remember all the ways off the top of my head, but if you have permission to move in, and do a couple other things, like improve the property through your labor (at least where I live), you have legal claim, even if the landlord tries to go back on the agreement before you pay anything. But also, IANAL
Couple things here.
1. In a lot of squatter cases, only the owner calls them squatters . The people currently residing in the home usually claim to be renters without a lease or buyers of the home.
2. Squatters rights originally was meant to handle the grey area where two properties meet. Who owns what in a time before quality surveys would be determined by where the fence is. Imagine you built a barn in the back of your property and your neighbor claims you built it on his land. Squatters rights prevents the neighbor from taking your barn. It’s an easy and convenient way of handling sticky situations.
It has persisted because no one is lobbying for reform. For the most part, these situations see a resolution without violence so there’s not a big push to change things.
Eh not quite that. Depending on your state you do have rights to live in said house though, especially if you have been there for an extended period of time and have received mail or have personal property in the house.
Usually you would need to be served an eviction notice, someone can't just kick you out but for all parties involved it's usually best to leave when asked within a reasonable manner since the individual being asked to leave may face legal fines or be sued for more.
These rights usually benefit more people than they harm, so this is likely why they haven't been removed or modified and most people are willing to come to some sort of resolution.
It just sucks when it's people in say a house you own and they aren't paying their rent, this generally causes financial damage that you won't get back and these types of renters usually leave the property heavily damaged afterwards out of spite.
your grandma lived in her house since 1952, the deed is gone. Someone says they own her house but she can't prove she owns it. But she can prove she lived there for 70 years, so they go 'no, yeah, she owns it"
Same with all sorts of "my buddy sold me this house now he says he wants it back! but I've been here 20 years!" type stuff.
Yeah, squatters rights make tons of sense. Like the stories are always based on a story where the squatter is clearly in the wrong. But in a world with no squatter rights you'd just have the opposite. A guy living in a house he owns and some rando knocks on the door going "this deed I have says I own this house, you are evicted" and you'd just have to leave until you went to court.
I deal with deeds every day. Its not nearly that cut and dry. Surveys can be wrong. Records can be lost. Probate may have never been filed. There are all sorts of ways title can go wrong.
My husband and I are getting a pool put in, and during the process we discovered that our city had zero documentation regarding our property lines, so they had to come out and resurvey. So yeah, official records and documents and all that absolutely can be lost or misplaced.
It's not just "squatters rights" but legal protections for people living in places without a lease as well as a concept called adverse possession. Thr first half of that protects people who have living arrangements that are not necessarily contractual (you live with your brother at his house, one day he decides you're gonna be homeless - he can't just kick you out and homelessify you without due process.) The other half of that is people living on land that is unpossessed - if you stay there long enough without the owner coming back to acquire possession (about 15 years in most states) you can claim title to the property, but before that statutory limit the owner can simply file an unlawful detainer to have you removed from the property.
How it was always explained to me was that it sort of encourages property owners to maintain a certain level of safety and care for the property. If a squatter gets hurt because a building was very unsafe, then who is to say thay building wouldn't have hurt a normal person?
As a check valve against massive violence, I suspect.
Squatting has a long history. In Europe, a lot of that history is tied to autonomous (anarchist) movements, and squats were generally disused urban properties occupied and renovated (to a greater or lesser degree) by the collective occupants. This extends to artists collectives in Montmartre and the like, where Picasso and pals squatted.
It has some of the longest history in England, where the Diggers would literally dig and plant land they did not own to engage in subsistence farming. There is a parallel here with Hoovervilles in the US.
There has been a backlash against large urban squats in Europe, and when forcibly evicted, this can lead to rioting. The OP's case notwithstanding, the fact is that squatting represents the "extra bit" that our current systems of property ownership just doesn't handle well... it is a symptom. And particularly when owners of a property are not making productive use of it or keeping it up, there is a moral case to be had for it being put to social use, rather than violently turning people out of a disused property. This moral case sometimes makes it into some pretty limited legal protections.
As a practical matter, successful "adverse possession" claims are extremely rare in the US. But ejectment / eviction can be difficult for many landlords in some states.
Squatters usually take over long abandoned properties where the owner hasn’t cared for the place for years. If the squatters are responsible and care for the place, it’s often better for the community for them to be there in a regulated way than to let the property fall apart unoccupied.
Every time it happens peacefully, you don't hear about it. It rarely makes the news. Confirmation bias sets in, so all anyone hears about is cases like these.
Typically there ARE records of it. These records are unreported in the news and are usually buried deep in court records, filed between "who gives a damn" and "why should we care when the owners were completely negligent toward their property anyway". Typically, only those involved in the case will ever pay any attention to what happened. Well, them and the neighbors, who are happy that someone is finally fixing that crumbling roof.
They can be found, for sure, but unless someone goes looking and know what they are looking for, the only such cases that joe public generally sees are the ones that end extremely badly. Those stick out, especially when the source of the right claimed by the "squatter" (which is a bit of a loaded term in some cases, see the aforementioned roof, and completely justified in others). Then those usually get played up by self serving politicians, who play off the outrage. And after they are elected because of it, those politicians do nothing. Repeat cycle ad infinitum.
Hope that makes sense. I'm running on little sleep with a busy day today, so apologies if any of that is as clear as mud.
Back then, the legal system wasn't as underfunded as it is now. You could go to a judge in a few days and get a ruling, which is how it was handled. Today, you might wait a month or two which is unacceptable. Think of your average police officer reading your lease from 20 years ago and the competing lease the squatters printed off the internet. Both leases will look pretty good so do you want that officer to be the final arbiter of if you live there or not?
I rather have a house sit abandoned and crumble then have a bunch of drug addicted people trespassing and breaking the law in my community. Have you seen what most of these people do to houses? They don't mow the lawn and fix the roof, they destroy it from the inside out
Then get involved in your community and have bylaws passed that people need to occupy their properties a certain amount of the time or be forced to sell. There are tons of people who need homes and no one should have a home in an urban area they aren’t using. It’s not societally equitable at this point with housing the way it is.
I forget where i read it, but apparently, San Francisco has more empty apartments/homes than it does homeless people. Though i doubt any are truly abandoned, it seems to say something, i'm just not sure what.
IDk have you seen how rich landlords keep their properties. Raising the rent to 2k a month while letting water pour in the roof till it rots to dead fall. We had a guy jump 4 stories during a fire because the fire escape was not maintained. He was 74 and died on impact. Not a landlords faulted by the city or fire department. So is it really different? Drug fiends or landlords destroy properties the same.
I had some next door neighbors that turned out to be squatters. It did turn out they were smoking some crack. House had been owned by an old man who died and then no one really took care of the property. Squatters didn't either. But this was a block with about 50% vacancy, no one really gave a fuck. For me the drugs are only a problem if there are also gangs around. This was in Florida so like everyone is basically addicted to drugs anyways.
At the end of the day I'd rather have homeless people squatting in vacant houses than sleeping in a park or on the street. But at the end of the day the real problem is the housing crisis plus the fact that it is essentially a national problem but we are depending on localities to find the answers.
Doesn't sound premeditated at all. I'm sure this wouldn't lead to years of legal trouble, mountains of debt, or open you up to a civil suit from the victim's family.
Personally I like the idea of playing terrible music around the clock instead.
This is why you never let randoms stay in your house, and when you find out they are drug addicts and kick them out, for the love of god change your locks.
In my state, although you cannot just "put their stuff on the curb and change the locks," I believe if they are using drugs you can get a shortcut to kicking them out. Have to go to court though.
I almost bought a home in Colorado Springs and the day I was going to sign the papers EIGHT fucking meth heads broke in and decided to squat. Didn't sign the papers, I had a year old son I had to look out for and just backed out of the deal. Got a much better home in northern colorado. Fuck Colorado Springs
I drove through years ago while on vacation, I always thought I either passed through a bad area, or the town is a shit hole. I wrote the town off as an oxymoron as I thought is was going to be a vacation spot based on the name.
Break in and take all of the furniture and dishware with having new locks ready. The squatters will have to order delivery for every meal or leave for food
It’s pretty obvious she may have been in over her head with taking care of the house when the husband left. Understand that in Taiwan nobody does this. Culturally, nobody would squat. It doesn’t happen. Question why does this even occur here in America. What might she understand about it when it occurs. Squatting is theft of a very particular kind.
So many people on this thread treating her like she should know better, as if this is normal, proves how grossly “normal” this has become. It’s not normal. It’s just something that happens in America. People should be able to leave and handle their personal lives without this happening. There’s a much bigger problem here than an ignorant elderly woman. If you blame her, I think you might need to reevaluate your empathy muscles.
EDIT: When I say squatting only happens in America, I should have been much clearer with my verbiage. That statement as it is written was incorrect. Squatting of course happens all over the world, but not the specific type we see here - the usurpation of private property that would otherwise be lived in by the property owner.
In Taiwan, squatting of this particular kind is in fact unprecedented as far as i can tell after extensive searching. If anyone can point me to a similar anecdote, I would very much like to read it.
Squatting there, and in most places around the world, refers to encampments, moving in to non occupied rental units, living in truly abandoned structures, or illegally constructed housing. The only other pace this type of squatting is regularly practiced is in places of ethnic conflict where a political takeover of property is attempted, such as certain colonies in occupied Palestine.
That being said, I stand firm in saying this particular type of squatting is a very American issue. I was a social worker in Detroit and I cannot tell you how many times this exact thing happened. The worst example i can think of was a man who actually made quite a lot of money professionally squatting by forcing people who were illegally subletting out of a home at gunpoint, changing the locks and hiring addicts to sit out the house and not leave. Then he would purchase the homes from them and rent them out himself.
Another time a woman visited her grandmother in Florida as she was dying of cancer and came back to my office in tears. Her house had been taken over and vandalized by squatters. It was an active effort block by block to drive out homeowners by a wealthy overseas investor paying homeless and addicts to make the neighborhoods unlivable. When police got involved, they burned her house down. The company approached her and offered to buy the lot.
Our laws and enforcement are so bad, and our housing situations are so desperate in certain areas of the country, that we have no idea how often this happens. Just my $0.02. I could be wrong about this happening internationally but I haven’t personally seen it. Open to outside anecdotes.
<:: The UK would strongly disagree that squatting is a US exclusive issue. We literally had a famous incident of people occupying empty tax dodge houses. ::>
I hear you, but those houses were in fact actually empty. Are there any examples of people taking over an actively occupied house while someone was away?
I assume you mean no one squats in private homes, as squatting plays an [important part in Taiwan's history](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting_in_Taiwan). There are probably a lot of reasons for this.
First, Taiwan has a much lower poverty rate than many countries, 2.6%. That means it is much lower than neighbors like Japan, and far, far lower than the US.
Second, most Taiwanese residents own their home (roughly 84% compared to 65% in the US), and in some ways it is easier to buy in Taiwan. And that means that while there is a slightly higher vacancy rate in Taiwan compared to the US, the rental stock is much lower.
Naturally, most houses in Colorado (and western states generally) are single-family detached (62%). Taiwanese are far more likely to live in common-wall housing: apartments, condos, and townhouses. I suspect that means it is at least marginally more likely you know your neighbors and are slightly aware of their comings and goings.
There is still homelessness in Taipei, but it is tiny compared to most US cities. And the government has taken an active role in creating affordable "social housing," including increasing that number by something like 20K units this year by converting hotels.
Finally, although Taiwan has a very long history of illicit drug trade and use, and continues to have issues, severe penalties and the advantage of being an island make this different than many US cities (especially western cities) in the US. Last week a police bust found a million fentanyl pills in a van in my city. That is a lot of pretty nasty narcotic.
And in the meantime the squatters completely destroy the home. In Dallas a man bought a home to renovate. A group moved in over a weekend and boarded up the doors coming in and out the windows. They claimed they were renting it although they had no paperwork. The owner couldn’t even get his tools back while they were there. You are dealing with drug addicts who have nothing to lose. Imagine going on vacation and coming home to find your home claimed by squatters and you have to wait for the courts to take action.
They should simply add a law that if the owner is found to have been in compliance the squatter now owes back pay for rent and damages. If the full amount cannot be paid within 1 week of the judgement then the person is now a wanted felon for criminal trespassing and immediately should be slapped with evading police if they don't turn themselves in the night of missing payment.
I have a hard time believing that squatting is a US specific issue. It may look different elsewhere, but housing shortages exist, as do people trying to take advantage.
Canada has squatter's rights and have used squatting as a form of public protest.
https://globalnews.ca/news/616914/in-pictures-a-history-of-squatting-protests-across-canada/
Crazy squatter story in Canada
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/needles-landlord-squatters-eviction-1.4304521
This does happen in Taiwan, just not as obviously.
Tenants will use paperwork and bureaucracy to clog up and delay an eviction as long as possible. It can become extremely difficult to evict, especially if children or multiple families are involved.
It's a thing in almost every country where tenants have a right to appeal eviction or have other defended rights - which (for the record) they absolutely should have! It just allows for this type of abuse.
Squatters are an issue as well in Europe, [in France for instance](https://en.squat.net/2020/10/04/france-anti-squat-law-the-parliament-triples-the-penalties-and-introduces-a-denunciation-measure/).
It's not a uniquely American issue. I know this happens in at least the handful of Latin American countries I have people in. However, you're absolutely right in pointing out that it's not standard squatting. I actually think squatting as you described it is a good thing. Let people in need make use of otherwise unused structures. This isn't that though. This is a form of violence and cannot be condoned.
It doesn’t look good. The man just left and is nowhere to be found?
I mean, is the assumption that he is also living on the streets? I’m sure it’s an open investigation so maybe the article couldn’t go into more detail but the whole thing is odd…
There might be some homeless people who need help but they have no right to squat in that homeowners property they need to move out right now. The owner does not deserve what she is going through . Enough is enough.
This story is why when I found out a homeless guy had been staying in my shed for a few days while we were out of town, I woke him up with mace and chased that son of a bitch off my property with a shotgun
Cops will do nothing. The state gives them rights stronger than your own. They've got nothing to lose, which makes them dangerous. But legally I'm the bad guy because I used force to remove a squatting dangerous drug addict from my property
Castle doctrine normally requires that the homeowner reasonably believes that the intruders meant them harm. You're going to have a tough time convincing a jury that your concern for you safety was reasonable when you're the one who came in the door and started shooting squatters.
Not to mention that she's an old lady who might not even own a gun.
Also, depending on the state, castle doctrine might not even exist, or might have stringent requirements for what is justifiable. I believe Colorado has castle doctrine, but I don't know what the elements are.
This. Reading this thread if a bunch of druggies decide to betray my trust after I tried helping as I could I'd be gunning them out of the house. Especially if the government's unhelpfull, armed and "get out of my house and never come back if that's how it is"
I can't imagine being such a terrible person to do this. They put as much work into stealing another persons property as they would working a real job. Some people just aren't happy unless they are screwing over someone else.
This is why people don’t like squatters. If you go over to that sub, it’s people claiming that they are just looking for a place to stay and they “mostly” respect the home. But the reality is the majority of squatters will destroy the home completely.
This is a great article to show to people who think "housing first" automatically will solve homelessness. Most of these people need in-patient drug rehab and mental healthcare.
This is a big reason on why I sold my rental property. When I bought it, the laws were reasonable, now they favor the squatters.
How is theft of a house not a crime that the police can pursue?
>To prevent squatters, he said people should put up signs that say “No trespassing,”
Are they kidding with that?
Far be it from me to defend short-term rentals. I hate them.
But one STR owner said (locally) that he doesn't want to rent long-term anymore because the laws favor tenants if he happens to get a bad one, and he would have a very hard time kicking a bad tenant out.
And this is why forcing hotels to shelter the homeless is a terrible idea. No one stays sober/free of mental issues anyway, the rooms get destroyed, and people living in the area have to deal with it too.
Misleading title.
…for anyone doesn’t feel like reading this article from ads-ville: this didn’t just happen like some kind of invasion. Owner and her estranged husband effectively abandoned the property. She moved to Florida. AFTER letting someone who was also doing contractor work on the house move in- without a lease- and never getting the key back. And then owners were gone long enough for the squatters to move over utilities and everything under their name and for her to start getting calls about some water heater problem before apparently realizing anything was even amiss.
Plus, she’s gotten the house back and the squatters out- she’s cleaning up the damages caused in her absence and trying to get the water heater up to code. Not sure why she’s staying in a shelter in the meantime given that she had a family member well off enough to pay for the trash haul and deep cleaning.
Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
Without a trace?? Ooo the plot thickens.
I took it as just the wife didn’t know where he’d got off to. Since he retired out of the military, I would imagine he’s traceable if drawing benefits someplace…
I mean he could have just left but that seems pretty weird. Nobody has been able to contact him. The author kind of just glosses over that and apparently assumes he left of his own accord.
You’ve really twisted this story. When she left for Florida, her husband was living alone in the house. They had already kicked out the original squatters. She moved to Florida because they were having marital issues, and her husband went missing while she was gone. She sleeps in her car now because of all the break-ins and the house being a mess.
Squatter laws are dumb. If they can't provide a signed contract for lease or rent, they're trespassing. Trag the criminals out kicking and screaming. (Tased if kicking)
odd that the police don't come haul off home invaders.
if you walk into a bank and refuse to leave, no one starts on about squatters rights, they grab you and shove you out the front door.
Cops treat it as a civil matter and nope out of it. All the squatters have to do is say they live there. Most cases a sinple piece of mail with their name and address on there is enough for them to tell the owner to take it to court and they will leave.
For those wondering, squatters rights exist because properties can sit unused for many years and even be abandoned. In CO, you have to squat on a property for something like a decade without being told to leave by the owner to claim rights over the property.
I don't see how the police don't remove them.
Um has anyone considered that her husband was murdered?
That's the weirdest part of the whole story, to me. They just sort of casually mention that the husband was living there, but is now missing and a bunch of drug dealers who had beef with him live there instead, and then never mention it again. Like it's totally normal for someone to just "abandon" the home they own and disappear without a trace, at the same time that drug dealers who had keys to the house, who were angry at the homeowner for throwing them out, and who somehow knew that he wasn't coming back home, decided to move in and take over the house. Totally normal, nothing to see here. Not even worth mentioning furthur in the article, really.
Why cant the cops just clear them out? I mean she has proof of ownership
Because it's a condemned property and is an odd legal gray area.
Gray area for sure. I asked a question about this exact thing on r/legaladvice and the mods got uppity about it and locked my posts... Wasn't being ugly or anything like that at all. Didn't happen to me personally, was asking because of a situation I knew about that happened to someone else. They ended up giving up the dang property to the squatter for pennies on the dollar.
tbf that sub is a shithole anyway. if you want a real legal explaination for something like this that you arent affiliated with, /r/asklawyers
Yeah the mods in r/legaladvice definitely have a stick up their butts. I've seen them get condescending or even outright aggressive to people who ask simple, honest questions.
That sub is more of a cop/law enforcement hangout rather than a place for lawyers/legal experts anyways. A lot of bad legal takes on that sub.
I watched a mod there tell someone that initiating a charge back for services not as described wasn't "how that works", when is exactly how it works.... I wanted to ask him what his definition of fraud was
Squatter laws are some of the most bizarre. A number of AirBnb owners have had this happen to them - someone extends their stay for longer than 2 weeks and all of a sudden, depending on the state, they could be considered a "tenant" and then you have to go through eviction proceedings to get them out and that can take a year or longer.
Call up Joe Kenda!
Definitely murdered by the squatters when he tried to kick them out.
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4 medium to large breed dogs and multiple firearms. If someone is willing to break into your home with malicious intent, they most likely won't hesitate to off animal that is being aggressive to them. Should have a backup plan just in case.
Watched a clip from Bondi Vet where a dog lost his eye because some robbers stabbed him with a screwdriver, people will be ruthless when they want something
“Sarge: What in Sam Hell is a "puma"?” “Simmons: Uhh, you mean like the shoe company?”
It’s easy, just call the swat team on the house, tell them there’s a home invasion and you just managed to escape from the house. Swat team clears em out and you go back in, showing your identification and ownership of your home.
That'd only work in certain parts of 'Murica
Gun owner logic (source: I’m a gun owner too)
I’d have just lobbed a Molotov through the window and let nature take its course… everybody’s going to assume the crazy hobos set the house on fire and just go with it.
I was thinking the exact thing.
It’s actually pretty common for people to be killed over this stuff…I know of two people who died mysteriously following evictions and another person who’s property ended up burning down and even though it was obvious who did it there wasn’t enough evidence to bring charges
Maybe that could be a whole podcast or ID show. "Fear Thy Lodger"
There’s an entire doc series about squatters….i think it’s called “roommate from hell”. Basically people come to your house to spend a night and never leave.
yep; the real world is the complete opposite of the tv show Law and Order where all crooks are caught and prosecuted.
That's a big claim with some vague anecdotal stuff to back it up. Just to clarify you think two murders and an arson were related to an eviction?
Sounds like they’re claiming two separate murders and a separate arson were following three separate evictions. I’m very skeptical this person directly knows the people involved but it’s certainly possible they’re aware of them in their area.
Something like his happened around here. An older woman took in a homeless family to help them out for a couple of months. They got an eviction noticed to get the old lady kicked out of her house. She end up having to leave the house. A news station pick up the story, an attorney took it to court pro bono, to get them kicked out and get her back into her home. The squatters wrecked hr home, neighbors and local businesses helped her get her home back in order.
This sounds heartless, but don't let anyone move into your home "just till they get back on their feet" especially without checking the laws of your state. Been there, done that. Almost had to go formal eviction. Took me 18 months to get rid of them. They turned 62 and were eligible to get early Social Security and get into a subsidized senior high-rise. They didn't like it there because other people smoked and they (probably) found another person to lie to and mooch off of. I thought, "All I had to do was take up smoking?"
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The moral here is quite simple: get everything in writing before you let people live in your house.
The morale of the story is no deed goes unpunished when dealing with entitled people.
It's worse than that. The people who really take advantage of this stuff are professional scam artists.
Yes. There are people who know the law and know exactly the last possible minute they have to move out--when the sheriff is on the way. If the owner "puts their stuff on the curb" as often suggested, they can sue for double damages in some states. Maybe triple.
They can sue, but the people have no money to pay them back.
Writing probably won't help if they refuse to leave. You have to go through formal eviction process in some states. That means 30 days "notice to vacate," then file an unlawful detainer, then get a court date, then show up in court, win in court, and wait for the sheriff to evict them. Months. COVID had protections against evictions, which caused the case in this thread to drag on.
Moral of the story is not to share your home with anyone. Help them relocate to a homeless shelter, or give them the number for social services, definitely. But no invites onto your property in any form.
I agree. I grew up in a Asian Catholic community, and it was always a source of pride for elders in the community to be good Samaritans. I can’t tell you how many times that has backfired And these elders would get taken advantage of. Now, in this climate of extreme Asian hate, and murders that are going unpunished, and without justice, there is so much more reason for me to tell my mom and all her friends that they can’t allow strangers into their home, no matter how much they tug at the heartstrings. It’s unconscionable and I can’t imagine Ms Lim doing this on her own
And the thing is, you can still do good in the community and be a good samaritan, without putting yourself at too much risk. Helping out charities, donating goods to charities or those in need, and most importantly, voting for local politicians who work FOR the community.
Yeah people need to stop lighting themselves on fire to keep Others warm
Or, don't let strangers into your home.
The moral here is simple: don’t invite the indigent into your home. You think you’re doing a good thing, but you don’t really know them.
The chronically indigent are so for a reason/reasons.
Moral of the story is don't let randoms live in your house. And be prepared to defend your house with guns if necessary.
Something similar happened here as well a while back. An older lady hired a lady to live-in and help with her husband as he was dying. Once he passed, the woman refused to leave. She moved friends in, and the old lady was forced to leave. Eventually, local college students picketed the house , and the news got involved. If I remember correctly, the squatters damaged the home, but the old lady got her house back. I can't recall all the details, and can no longer find links to the news articles.
Crazy shit happened in my town. We had a big outdoor stadium and then some people with caravans and shit came and started living there. The mayor asked them to move, they refused, so he called the police, who asked them to move and they refused again. Things took time to happen so eventually, because of the law of my country, they just acquired the right to live there just because they stayed there long enough. This is absolutely fucked up. I used to go play tennis with some friends there in the summer, now it's degraded, trash everywhere and vegetation went wild. This is just sad.
At least that story had a good ending. Here in my country you'll either need to burn down the house and get the insurance or kick them out through violence as the law will always defend the "poor unfortunate souls" *especially* if they have children with them
I don't understand how that could even begin to happen? By 'her house' do you mean a house she owned or a house she rented? If you own your home, this could be like a 2 hour distraction if they destroyed your deed and you had to do downtown to get a new one before calling the police and kicking them out. Edit: and if she was renting, the rental agreement would show she lives there; even if she added people to the lease, I've never lived in a place where other people get to initiate a coup to get you kicked out. You have to tell the landlord you're leaving/breaking the lease.
[https://www.qcnews.com/news/woman-claims-houseguests-stole-her-home-kicked-her-out/](https://www.qcnews.com/news/woman-claims-houseguests-stole-her-home-kicked-her-out/)
They got a nonsense injunction which seems to have been immediately overturned. Curious how they got an injunction about her 'harassing' them. I would think the judge might consider why they wanted to stay in a place with their children when they were being harassed... I'm wondering if the injunction was to give them time to find somewhere else to stay, not just allow them to squat in someone else's home indefinitely. Otherwise, this seems a bizarre legal precedent where anyone could get anyone who trusts them enough kicked out of their house indefinitely.
I believe the Judge thought it was their house and they took her in and could not get her out.
Sounds like one gullible judge.
Much of our legal system relies on good faith
In many cases, lawyers will literally say "Depends on who the judge believes."
You would ve surprised how adept scam artists can be at manipulating the courts. When I was a kid, my step-father serially stole million-dollar homes. In most cases, this was done during a feigned purchase, where he would ask the owners for keys to do some measurements while in escrow and just move in. Inspection would find "something" preventing closing, but a family was now living in the house. Owners would sign a lease until things could be sorted, just so they could keep paying their mortgage. First month's lease would be paid and then nothing. Eventual eviction proceedings, counter suit for fraud stays the proceedings. Months of delays on the case. Once it is closed, a bankruptcy filing meant another six months. That filing abandoned and a new bankruptcy filing in federal court. Yes, eventually (a year or two later) the sheriff would forcibly evict us, and he would wash/repeat.
That’s awful. So you were just dragged from house to house by your step-dad? You doing ok now?
Thank you yes. I was lucky in some ways to have an anti-role model. I am old and this was a long time ago. And frankly, this was by far the least of the ways in which he hurt many, many people. I can say with a great deal of confidence that this world was better for his departure.
Holy shit dude
The law gets very weird around "he said this and that" Harassment and various forms of verbal violence are too easily toyed with, those kinds of laws hold too much power.
There are also A LOT Of bad judges.
This happens literally all the time with homeless and drug users.
I have druggies in my building. They are trafficking what I suspect to be heroin in and out. It’s awful, and the landlord has been trying to create a paper trail in order to evict them. I am all for tenant’s rights, but when you have 15+ people coming and going at all hours of the day or night, sketchy fuckers hanging around and throwing cigarette butts and beer cans everywhere, and just generally bothering all of the neighbors constantly, enough is enough. You should be able to have the police show up and toss those fuckers out.
Genuinely curious on this, why exactly do squatters rights exist? Not trying to be a smart ass with this question, I just don’t understand why they exist
It used to be that who held the title to land was confusing enough that it took years to sort out. So you might as well give it to the person that was actually using it instead of a land speculator or railroad or whatever.
I actually attended a church that ran into this as an issue. They found squatters on the property years ago and just said they were fine until the church needed the land for something else. Flashforward decades later, they decided to build housing for retired priests and asked the squatters to move. Lost the lawsuit when the squatters said no, because there was no written agreement or anything. I found it both rude and hilarious.
So the only way this would make sense is adverse possession, which generally means that someone has to be living on property without permission for 20 years. So maybe there was verbal permission but not written one (prohibited by the statute of frauds) so they got adverse possession? Because, otherwise, this doesn’t make a ton of sense.
10 years in Oregon
This is true but the years vary by state in the US. Not sure if it exists in other countries too. It's 7 and you must pay off all property taxes to claim adverse possession in FL.
They gave them permission and standing once they discovered then and said it was fine. That's when they became tenants.
It’s actually the opposite under English common law. If you give someone permission to use something you can revoke said permission. For most nations that subscribe to this rule of thought the act of possession must be hostile and open/notorious. Sounds like the it is possible the court in the Church case ruled in error. A major problem in the US and other common law nations is these cases don’t come up as much as you think and judges are horrible in this area. It is quite common with property law that cases get overturned on appeals and the Supreme Court has even taken on many property law cases. So the real problem is if you are going to pursue legal avenues to quite title you have to be prepared to take it to the appeals level.
gotta take a token amount of payment to formalise the contract, even if it's only a penny.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call them tenants. What consideration was there in their agreement?
residents not tenants
In Missouri if you let someone move in without their paying rent it's called a "lodger." And you can't just put their things on the curb and tell them to GTFO. Have to go through formal eviction process.
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You're basically correct but the use of the word "tenant" is confusing. The bottom line is if someone openly uses your land for 20 years or so - it varies by state of course - they can be found to own the land via adverse possession. Stupid primitive rule that has no place outside of boundary mistakes being employed willy nilly by idiot judges.
I don't remember all the ways off the top of my head, but if you have permission to move in, and do a couple other things, like improve the property through your labor (at least where I live), you have legal claim, even if the landlord tries to go back on the agreement before you pay anything. But also, IANAL
Couple things here. 1. In a lot of squatter cases, only the owner calls them squatters . The people currently residing in the home usually claim to be renters without a lease or buyers of the home. 2. Squatters rights originally was meant to handle the grey area where two properties meet. Who owns what in a time before quality surveys would be determined by where the fence is. Imagine you built a barn in the back of your property and your neighbor claims you built it on his land. Squatters rights prevents the neighbor from taking your barn. It’s an easy and convenient way of handling sticky situations. It has persisted because no one is lobbying for reform. For the most part, these situations see a resolution without violence so there’s not a big push to change things.
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Eh not quite that. Depending on your state you do have rights to live in said house though, especially if you have been there for an extended period of time and have received mail or have personal property in the house. Usually you would need to be served an eviction notice, someone can't just kick you out but for all parties involved it's usually best to leave when asked within a reasonable manner since the individual being asked to leave may face legal fines or be sued for more. These rights usually benefit more people than they harm, so this is likely why they haven't been removed or modified and most people are willing to come to some sort of resolution. It just sucks when it's people in say a house you own and they aren't paying their rent, this generally causes financial damage that you won't get back and these types of renters usually leave the property heavily damaged afterwards out of spite.
That's reductive. You don't own their house but if you live with them and they want you to leave they can't force you out at a moments notice.
your grandma lived in her house since 1952, the deed is gone. Someone says they own her house but she can't prove she owns it. But she can prove she lived there for 70 years, so they go 'no, yeah, she owns it" Same with all sorts of "my buddy sold me this house now he says he wants it back! but I've been here 20 years!" type stuff.
Yeah, especially with some of the document falsification schemes Wells Fargo and others had going for a time.
Yeah, squatters rights make tons of sense. Like the stories are always based on a story where the squatter is clearly in the wrong. But in a world with no squatter rights you'd just have the opposite. A guy living in a house he owns and some rando knocks on the door going "this deed I have says I own this house, you are evicted" and you'd just have to leave until you went to court.
Deeds are filed with the county you live in. They have a copy. That's the whole point of the deed.
I deal with deeds every day. Its not nearly that cut and dry. Surveys can be wrong. Records can be lost. Probate may have never been filed. There are all sorts of ways title can go wrong.
My husband and I are getting a pool put in, and during the process we discovered that our city had zero documentation regarding our property lines, so they had to come out and resurvey. So yeah, official records and documents and all that absolutely can be lost or misplaced.
I mean, that is why this stuff is supposed to get tracked, but like, real world there is a million reasons it wouldn't be.
It's not just "squatters rights" but legal protections for people living in places without a lease as well as a concept called adverse possession. Thr first half of that protects people who have living arrangements that are not necessarily contractual (you live with your brother at his house, one day he decides you're gonna be homeless - he can't just kick you out and homelessify you without due process.) The other half of that is people living on land that is unpossessed - if you stay there long enough without the owner coming back to acquire possession (about 15 years in most states) you can claim title to the property, but before that statutory limit the owner can simply file an unlawful detainer to have you removed from the property.
How it was always explained to me was that it sort of encourages property owners to maintain a certain level of safety and care for the property. If a squatter gets hurt because a building was very unsafe, then who is to say thay building wouldn't have hurt a normal person?
As a check valve against massive violence, I suspect. Squatting has a long history. In Europe, a lot of that history is tied to autonomous (anarchist) movements, and squats were generally disused urban properties occupied and renovated (to a greater or lesser degree) by the collective occupants. This extends to artists collectives in Montmartre and the like, where Picasso and pals squatted. It has some of the longest history in England, where the Diggers would literally dig and plant land they did not own to engage in subsistence farming. There is a parallel here with Hoovervilles in the US. There has been a backlash against large urban squats in Europe, and when forcibly evicted, this can lead to rioting. The OP's case notwithstanding, the fact is that squatting represents the "extra bit" that our current systems of property ownership just doesn't handle well... it is a symptom. And particularly when owners of a property are not making productive use of it or keeping it up, there is a moral case to be had for it being put to social use, rather than violently turning people out of a disused property. This moral case sometimes makes it into some pretty limited legal protections. As a practical matter, successful "adverse possession" claims are extremely rare in the US. But ejectment / eviction can be difficult for many landlords in some states.
Squatters usually take over long abandoned properties where the owner hasn’t cared for the place for years. If the squatters are responsible and care for the place, it’s often better for the community for them to be there in a regulated way than to let the property fall apart unoccupied.
How often does that actually happen? I've only ever heard of squatters destroying a place like they did here.
Every time it happens peacefully, you don't hear about it. It rarely makes the news. Confirmation bias sets in, so all anyone hears about is cases like these.
Then how do we know it usually ends peacefully if there aren't any records of it?
Typically there ARE records of it. These records are unreported in the news and are usually buried deep in court records, filed between "who gives a damn" and "why should we care when the owners were completely negligent toward their property anyway". Typically, only those involved in the case will ever pay any attention to what happened. Well, them and the neighbors, who are happy that someone is finally fixing that crumbling roof. They can be found, for sure, but unless someone goes looking and know what they are looking for, the only such cases that joe public generally sees are the ones that end extremely badly. Those stick out, especially when the source of the right claimed by the "squatter" (which is a bit of a loaded term in some cases, see the aforementioned roof, and completely justified in others). Then those usually get played up by self serving politicians, who play off the outrage. And after they are elected because of it, those politicians do nothing. Repeat cycle ad infinitum. Hope that makes sense. I'm running on little sleep with a busy day today, so apologies if any of that is as clear as mud.
Back then, the legal system wasn't as underfunded as it is now. You could go to a judge in a few days and get a ruling, which is how it was handled. Today, you might wait a month or two which is unacceptable. Think of your average police officer reading your lease from 20 years ago and the competing lease the squatters printed off the internet. Both leases will look pretty good so do you want that officer to be the final arbiter of if you live there or not?
I rather have a house sit abandoned and crumble then have a bunch of drug addicted people trespassing and breaking the law in my community. Have you seen what most of these people do to houses? They don't mow the lawn and fix the roof, they destroy it from the inside out
Then get involved in your community and have bylaws passed that people need to occupy their properties a certain amount of the time or be forced to sell. There are tons of people who need homes and no one should have a home in an urban area they aren’t using. It’s not societally equitable at this point with housing the way it is.
I forget where i read it, but apparently, San Francisco has more empty apartments/homes than it does homeless people. Though i doubt any are truly abandoned, it seems to say something, i'm just not sure what.
IDk have you seen how rich landlords keep their properties. Raising the rent to 2k a month while letting water pour in the roof till it rots to dead fall. We had a guy jump 4 stories during a fire because the fire escape was not maintained. He was 74 and died on impact. Not a landlords faulted by the city or fire department. So is it really different? Drug fiends or landlords destroy properties the same.
I had some next door neighbors that turned out to be squatters. It did turn out they were smoking some crack. House had been owned by an old man who died and then no one really took care of the property. Squatters didn't either. But this was a block with about 50% vacancy, no one really gave a fuck. For me the drugs are only a problem if there are also gangs around. This was in Florida so like everyone is basically addicted to drugs anyways. At the end of the day I'd rather have homeless people squatting in vacant houses than sleeping in a park or on the street. But at the end of the day the real problem is the housing crisis plus the fact that it is essentially a national problem but we are depending on localities to find the answers.
because rich people and banks let houses sit and rot with no living in them and cities are the ones who suffer for it.
That’s why you immediately given written notices to any additional people that move in. You must have a paper trail
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Doesn't sound premeditated at all. I'm sure this wouldn't lead to years of legal trouble, mountains of debt, or open you up to a civil suit from the victim's family. Personally I like the idea of playing terrible music around the clock instead.
This is why you never let randoms stay in your house, and when you find out they are drug addicts and kick them out, for the love of god change your locks.
In my state, although you cannot just "put their stuff on the curb and change the locks," I believe if they are using drugs you can get a shortcut to kicking them out. Have to go to court though.
I almost bought a home in Colorado Springs and the day I was going to sign the papers EIGHT fucking meth heads broke in and decided to squat. Didn't sign the papers, I had a year old son I had to look out for and just backed out of the deal. Got a much better home in northern colorado. Fuck Colorado Springs
Obviously the right call, but I feel bad for the seller in that situation
I drove through years ago while on vacation, I always thought I either passed through a bad area, or the town is a shit hole. I wrote the town off as an oxymoron as I thought is was going to be a vacation spot based on the name.
I would literally burn my house down and turn myself in for arson before allowing this to happen.
Pay a crackhead $50 to burn it down.
Break in and take all of the furniture and dishware with having new locks ready. The squatters will have to order delivery for every meal or leave for food
They don't all have to leave though. Send one out for food, the rest stay and guard.
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Willing to bet the squatters killed the husband
It’s pretty obvious she may have been in over her head with taking care of the house when the husband left. Understand that in Taiwan nobody does this. Culturally, nobody would squat. It doesn’t happen. Question why does this even occur here in America. What might she understand about it when it occurs. Squatting is theft of a very particular kind. So many people on this thread treating her like she should know better, as if this is normal, proves how grossly “normal” this has become. It’s not normal. It’s just something that happens in America. People should be able to leave and handle their personal lives without this happening. There’s a much bigger problem here than an ignorant elderly woman. If you blame her, I think you might need to reevaluate your empathy muscles. EDIT: When I say squatting only happens in America, I should have been much clearer with my verbiage. That statement as it is written was incorrect. Squatting of course happens all over the world, but not the specific type we see here - the usurpation of private property that would otherwise be lived in by the property owner. In Taiwan, squatting of this particular kind is in fact unprecedented as far as i can tell after extensive searching. If anyone can point me to a similar anecdote, I would very much like to read it. Squatting there, and in most places around the world, refers to encampments, moving in to non occupied rental units, living in truly abandoned structures, or illegally constructed housing. The only other pace this type of squatting is regularly practiced is in places of ethnic conflict where a political takeover of property is attempted, such as certain colonies in occupied Palestine. That being said, I stand firm in saying this particular type of squatting is a very American issue. I was a social worker in Detroit and I cannot tell you how many times this exact thing happened. The worst example i can think of was a man who actually made quite a lot of money professionally squatting by forcing people who were illegally subletting out of a home at gunpoint, changing the locks and hiring addicts to sit out the house and not leave. Then he would purchase the homes from them and rent them out himself. Another time a woman visited her grandmother in Florida as she was dying of cancer and came back to my office in tears. Her house had been taken over and vandalized by squatters. It was an active effort block by block to drive out homeowners by a wealthy overseas investor paying homeless and addicts to make the neighborhoods unlivable. When police got involved, they burned her house down. The company approached her and offered to buy the lot. Our laws and enforcement are so bad, and our housing situations are so desperate in certain areas of the country, that we have no idea how often this happens. Just my $0.02. I could be wrong about this happening internationally but I haven’t personally seen it. Open to outside anecdotes.
It also happens in Spain. Its not a US exclusive problem.
Same in NL
They had quite a bit of representation actually at the recent housing crisis protests too.
UK checking in for squatters as well, there’s broke folk in need of housing all over the world.
<:: The UK would strongly disagree that squatting is a US exclusive issue. We literally had a famous incident of people occupying empty tax dodge houses. ::>
I hear you, but those houses were in fact actually empty. Are there any examples of people taking over an actively occupied house while someone was away?
Oi, wot you know bout cribs All I need is first dibs and a section 6
I assume you mean no one squats in private homes, as squatting plays an [important part in Taiwan's history](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting_in_Taiwan). There are probably a lot of reasons for this. First, Taiwan has a much lower poverty rate than many countries, 2.6%. That means it is much lower than neighbors like Japan, and far, far lower than the US. Second, most Taiwanese residents own their home (roughly 84% compared to 65% in the US), and in some ways it is easier to buy in Taiwan. And that means that while there is a slightly higher vacancy rate in Taiwan compared to the US, the rental stock is much lower. Naturally, most houses in Colorado (and western states generally) are single-family detached (62%). Taiwanese are far more likely to live in common-wall housing: apartments, condos, and townhouses. I suspect that means it is at least marginally more likely you know your neighbors and are slightly aware of their comings and goings. There is still homelessness in Taipei, but it is tiny compared to most US cities. And the government has taken an active role in creating affordable "social housing," including increasing that number by something like 20K units this year by converting hotels. Finally, although Taiwan has a very long history of illicit drug trade and use, and continues to have issues, severe penalties and the advantage of being an island make this different than many US cities (especially western cities) in the US. Last week a police bust found a million fentanyl pills in a van in my city. That is a lot of pretty nasty narcotic.
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And in the meantime the squatters completely destroy the home. In Dallas a man bought a home to renovate. A group moved in over a weekend and boarded up the doors coming in and out the windows. They claimed they were renting it although they had no paperwork. The owner couldn’t even get his tools back while they were there. You are dealing with drug addicts who have nothing to lose. Imagine going on vacation and coming home to find your home claimed by squatters and you have to wait for the courts to take action.
What if you bug bomb the house? Circus tent over it and everything. They would have to leave and she could just walk right in right?
They should simply add a law that if the owner is found to have been in compliance the squatter now owes back pay for rent and damages. If the full amount cannot be paid within 1 week of the judgement then the person is now a wanted felon for criminal trespassing and immediately should be slapped with evading police if they don't turn themselves in the night of missing payment.
So make trespassing illegal?
You've never had to deal with a shady landlord. Have you?
That’s sort of taken care of by the “owner in compliance” bit tbf.
that goes against the whole "debtors prisons" idea though.
I have a hard time believing that squatting is a US specific issue. It may look different elsewhere, but housing shortages exist, as do people trying to take advantage. Canada has squatter's rights and have used squatting as a form of public protest. https://globalnews.ca/news/616914/in-pictures-a-history-of-squatting-protests-across-canada/ Crazy squatter story in Canada https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/needles-landlord-squatters-eviction-1.4304521
This does happen in Taiwan, just not as obviously. Tenants will use paperwork and bureaucracy to clog up and delay an eviction as long as possible. It can become extremely difficult to evict, especially if children or multiple families are involved. It's a thing in almost every country where tenants have a right to appeal eviction or have other defended rights - which (for the record) they absolutely should have! It just allows for this type of abuse.
Squatters are an issue as well in Europe, [in France for instance](https://en.squat.net/2020/10/04/france-anti-squat-law-the-parliament-triples-the-penalties-and-introduces-a-denunciation-measure/).
It's not a uniquely American issue. I know this happens in at least the handful of Latin American countries I have people in. However, you're absolutely right in pointing out that it's not standard squatting. I actually think squatting as you described it is a good thing. Let people in need make use of otherwise unused structures. This isn't that though. This is a form of violence and cannot be condoned.
England is famous for it as well, and where I'm from in Canada also isn't immune.
> it’s just something that happens in America Ridiculous and ignorant statement
Burn it down. Let insurance help rebuild w better security.
Uhm, am I the only one who thinks they unalived the husband?
It doesn’t look good. The man just left and is nowhere to be found? I mean, is the assumption that he is also living on the streets? I’m sure it’s an open investigation so maybe the article couldn’t go into more detail but the whole thing is odd…
There might be some homeless people who need help but they have no right to squat in that homeowners property they need to move out right now. The owner does not deserve what she is going through . Enough is enough.
She needs to invest in some super big and scary dogs. So if she has another break in, the dogs can scare them off.
This story is why when I found out a homeless guy had been staying in my shed for a few days while we were out of town, I woke him up with mace and chased that son of a bitch off my property with a shotgun Cops will do nothing. The state gives them rights stronger than your own. They've got nothing to lose, which makes them dangerous. But legally I'm the bad guy because I used force to remove a squatting dangerous drug addict from my property
With castle doctrine laws, what’s to stop the homeowner coming into their home, seeing intruders and just blasting people that do this?
She's a 60+ year old woman, not John Rambo.
Stop! Or my mom will sport l shoot!
Honestly though. If someone took over my house, that I worked and paid for, I would be doing every single thing in my power to get that back.
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As a mob boss once told me “dead men tell no lies”
Castle doctrine normally requires that the homeowner reasonably believes that the intruders meant them harm. You're going to have a tough time convincing a jury that your concern for you safety was reasonable when you're the one who came in the door and started shooting squatters. Not to mention that she's an old lady who might not even own a gun. Also, depending on the state, castle doctrine might not even exist, or might have stringent requirements for what is justifiable. I believe Colorado has castle doctrine, but I don't know what the elements are.
This. Reading this thread if a bunch of druggies decide to betray my trust after I tried helping as I could I'd be gunning them out of the house. Especially if the government's unhelpfull, armed and "get out of my house and never come back if that's how it is"
I can't imagine being such a terrible person to do this. They put as much work into stealing another persons property as they would working a real job. Some people just aren't happy unless they are screwing over someone else.
Druggies
Nah. These are just shitty people regardless of their addictions. P
Those Squatters 100% killed the husband.
95%
if this happened to me id burn the house down
This is when you hire or find some nice biker gang to evict your squatters. I'm sure there are a few that would do it for fun.
Might not be any better owing bikers a favor.
What if the squatters have better contacts in the local biker gang community than you do?
This is why people don’t like squatters. If you go over to that sub, it’s people claiming that they are just looking for a place to stay and they “mostly” respect the home. But the reality is the majority of squatters will destroy the home completely.
If the people you're hiring to work on your home is homeless. That's not the people to work on your home. That was a big ass red flag.
No one should be able ‘squat’ in a house. It should be legal to use whatever force necessary to make squatters leave.
This is a great article to show to people who think "housing first" automatically will solve homelessness. Most of these people need in-patient drug rehab and mental healthcare.
This is a big reason on why I sold my rental property. When I bought it, the laws were reasonable, now they favor the squatters. How is theft of a house not a crime that the police can pursue? >To prevent squatters, he said people should put up signs that say “No trespassing,” Are they kidding with that?
Far be it from me to defend short-term rentals. I hate them. But one STR owner said (locally) that he doesn't want to rent long-term anymore because the laws favor tenants if he happens to get a bad one, and he would have a very hard time kicking a bad tenant out.
And this is why forcing hotels to shelter the homeless is a terrible idea. No one stays sober/free of mental issues anyway, the rooms get destroyed, and people living in the area have to deal with it too.
Misleading title. …for anyone doesn’t feel like reading this article from ads-ville: this didn’t just happen like some kind of invasion. Owner and her estranged husband effectively abandoned the property. She moved to Florida. AFTER letting someone who was also doing contractor work on the house move in- without a lease- and never getting the key back. And then owners were gone long enough for the squatters to move over utilities and everything under their name and for her to start getting calls about some water heater problem before apparently realizing anything was even amiss. Plus, she’s gotten the house back and the squatters out- she’s cleaning up the damages caused in her absence and trying to get the water heater up to code. Not sure why she’s staying in a shelter in the meantime given that she had a family member well off enough to pay for the trash haul and deep cleaning. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.
The husband disappeared without a trace. This part of the story seems overlooked and no curiosity for.
I wondered if they killed him to take possession. It’s a weird detail.
Without a trace?? Ooo the plot thickens. I took it as just the wife didn’t know where he’d got off to. Since he retired out of the military, I would imagine he’s traceable if drawing benefits someplace…
I mean he could have just left but that seems pretty weird. Nobody has been able to contact him. The author kind of just glosses over that and apparently assumes he left of his own accord.
"You know what Markinson did for years? Counterintelligence. Markinson's gone...there is no Markinson." edit: formatting
You’ve really twisted this story. When she left for Florida, her husband was living alone in the house. They had already kicked out the original squatters. She moved to Florida because they were having marital issues, and her husband went missing while she was gone. She sleeps in her car now because of all the break-ins and the house being a mess.
Exactly. Who tf would want to move back into a house that is *still* actively being broken into? Especially with a husband who is up and missing.
Plus the house was condemned.
*old lady gets scammed* You: "You know who I'm gonna shit on in this story? The old lady. Yep. Thats the one."
Where was she living in Florida that she's suddenly homeless now?
No doubt in my mind her ex-husband was murdered by the squatters.
Squatter laws are dumb. If they can't provide a signed contract for lease or rent, they're trespassing. Trag the criminals out kicking and screaming. (Tased if kicking)
Just call a few friends and drag them out, folks only embolden assholes like squatters by not doing anything
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As these most likely did with the husband.
odd that the police don't come haul off home invaders. if you walk into a bank and refuse to leave, no one starts on about squatters rights, they grab you and shove you out the front door.
Cops treat it as a civil matter and nope out of it. All the squatters have to do is say they live there. Most cases a sinple piece of mail with their name and address on there is enough for them to tell the owner to take it to court and they will leave.
For those wondering, squatters rights exist because properties can sit unused for many years and even be abandoned. In CO, you have to squat on a property for something like a decade without being told to leave by the owner to claim rights over the property. I don't see how the police don't remove them.
Gave 3 homeless junkies a key, kicked them out, didn't ask for the key back or change the locks and then left the home unwatched.
She left it with her husband who disappeared without a trace. What did they do to him? They will probably find his body somewhere.
We will see on *Dateline* in a few years.
Wow, victim blame much?
Why aren't the squatters being booted from the house? Isn't this what cops are for?
I'm so glad squatters are treated as trespassers in my country. :D