0:01

A woman

0:05

rented out a guest home in one of

0:08

LA's posh neighborhoods but refuses to leave. The

0:10

house came with something the new owners did

0:12

not bargain for, a squatter.

0:16

Couple in New York City bought their

0:18

dream home for $2 million, but nope,

0:20

a freeloader. A squatter is inside right

0:22

now and will not leave. A

0:25

San Diego woman says squatters are living in her

0:27

rental home and she can't get rid of them.

0:30

Wallmakers in Tallahassee are taking action

0:33

to address squatting. Hot dog, finally,

0:35

finally something's getting done. Squatters. I

0:37

walked in on weapons, a prostitute,

0:39

a bunch of dogs in the

0:42

back. It's pretty crazy to think that I

0:44

could just walk onto any porch that I want to,

0:46

show up and claim that I have the right to

0:48

be here. Well, we're hearing now that if it happened

0:50

to the mayor's house, it'd happen to any of us.

0:53

Squatters. Coming

0:57

up on JExplained. What's

1:01

up guys? I'm Evan Turner, co-host of

1:03

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1:06

We got a special series out now, all

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1:28

on Point Forward Feed, on YouTube, or wherever

1:30

you get your podcasts. Are

1:36

we living in a revolutionary moment? Farid

1:39

Zakaria makes the case that we are, and if

1:41

he's right, there's a lot at stake. I

1:44

think the stakes are really liberal

1:46

democracy. What has happened

1:48

is the people who are displaced,

1:51

anxious, angry, radicalized,

1:54

the focus of their eye or

1:56

their attention is basically to tear

1:58

down the system. You know the

2:01

world that produced all this hear

2:03

more this week on the gray area available wherever

2:05

you get your podcasts It's

2:10

today What's

2:16

the big story over at curb these days The

2:19

story is squatting how to do it

2:21

where the best places to squat are What's

2:24

the best weather and season for squatting? Just

2:26

kidding? No, it is squatting but we don't

2:29

we don't tell you how but we have

2:31

been covering A topic that

2:33

seems to be interesting for everyone these

2:35

days. This is bridget reed.

2:37

She covers housing for curbed We asked her

2:39

what's up with the sudden interest in squatting?

2:42

You know, we're not exactly sure there

2:44

definitely were a few squatting situations in

2:46

new york city That happened

2:48

around the same time. So it almost created

2:50

like a squatter cluster. Let's call it um,

2:53

and that was kind of swarmed by the new

2:55

york post which uh,

2:57

really likes to cover these stories and

3:01

That's when it kind of spun out and now it

3:03

seems to have kind of reached a

3:05

fever pitch Who

3:11

shouldn't be trying to steal my house

3:13

Yes, you are Adele and eloro says

3:15

she inherited this new york city house

3:17

But a group of people moved in

3:19

and changed the locks One

3:21

that made a lot of headlines involved a

3:23

homeowner in queens who was actually herself

3:26

arrested when she attempted to intervene on

3:28

Men, she found living at her

3:31

property and that one really went viral So

3:33

when adele had the locks changed again, you're

3:35

getting arrested right now For

3:37

what so being in my own home

3:39

police then took her away in handcuffs

3:41

for unlawful evictions another one

3:43

involves man Living in

3:46

a home that was recently bought by a family

3:48

and there was sort of in a dispute The

3:50

man living there claims to have been

3:52

a caretaker of the old owner a

3:55

signed statement says he was hired by

3:57

the former homeowner as his caretaker was

3:59

paid $2,000 a week and

4:01

his employment ended in January of last year

4:04

when the man died. And

4:06

then a really grisly example was

4:09

a woman who actually was murdered

4:11

when she came upon accused

4:14

squatters living in her apartment in Manhattan.

4:16

Police say two alleged squatters killed a

4:18

mother and hit her body in a

4:20

duffel bag in an apartment. There

4:23

have definitely been more stories across the

4:25

country. I did cover one in LA

4:28

involving people that moved into a mansion

4:30

in Beverly Hills. Some Beverly Crest

4:32

residents tell us that they are being kept

4:35

up at all hours of the night and

4:37

fearing for their safety. There was

4:39

another LA story involving someone who moved into a

4:41

home in Hollywood and was renting

4:43

out the rooms for OnlyFans stars. That

4:46

one made some headlines. This

4:48

really is so bizarre. It almost sounds

4:50

like a Hollywood movie. You've got a

4:53

stunning Hollywood mansion up for sale, OnlyFans

4:55

models and parties. But this really did

4:57

happen and apparently it's going on more

4:59

often than we know about. There

5:01

have been a lot of stories in Atlanta

5:04

where there is a quite strong rental

5:06

home and sort of second home,

5:08

Airbnb home market. So they

5:10

do have a lot of empty vacant property. Local

5:13

army officer is back in her DeKalb County

5:15

home tonight a week after we told you

5:17

about how a squatter had moved in and

5:19

was living in her place. So those are

5:21

some big ones. Is

5:25

there an actual uptick in squatting right now

5:27

or is this just a story that's getting

5:29

more attention right now? Do we know? The

5:33

answer somewhat unsatisfyingly is that

5:35

it's hard to say

5:37

because squatting the term is

5:40

being used as kind of a catch all

5:42

for something that actually does have a legal

5:44

definition. So true squatting

5:46

involving someone illegally occupying

5:48

your property has never been

5:51

given permission. That's the

5:53

true definition of squatting. Some

5:55

of these situations involve

5:58

people who have been given permission to live on

6:00

a property, whether they're tenants with a lease or

6:02

whether they're something called a licensee, which

6:04

is like, you're a guest, you're

6:07

staying over, you're an

6:09

Airbnb, you're supposed to be there for two

6:11

days, whatever, those are licensees. So some

6:13

situations involve those people. So those

6:15

are not technically squatters. So

6:18

it's really hard to say there's a

6:20

squatting database. Squatting itself is really

6:23

rare. But what we're seeing is sort

6:25

of landlord-tenant disputes and some of them

6:27

are turning violent or sort of salacious

6:29

and they're all being grouped together. That's

6:32

why it's been difficult to parse

6:34

what exactly we're talking about. In

6:36

these cases in New York that have been reported on, who

6:39

exactly is doing the squatting and why?

6:42

Are these people without homes? Are these people

6:44

who are looking for a great deal? What's

6:46

the story? It's a mix. Some

6:49

of them are certainly

6:51

people who seem

6:53

to need a

6:55

place to stay for sure. The

6:58

woman in Queens who was

7:00

arrested, she found people living

7:02

on the property and one of them was a guy

7:04

who said, hey, I'm a tenant, I signed a lease

7:06

with this other guy. So they're

7:09

sort of arrangements within arrangements.

7:12

The people in the apartment in

7:14

Manhattan where the horrible murder happened, they

7:16

fled in a stolen car, they

7:18

seem to certainly be criminals. The

7:21

guy in Queens living in the house as

7:23

a caretaker, he had an agreement, like I

7:25

said, with the other owner. So

7:28

he just doesn't wanna move, it seems.

7:31

And then there's some of them, there

7:33

was another incident that involved people

7:35

who've been said to be undocumented.

7:38

Just last week, police arrested eight migrants

7:40

believed to be squatting inside of the

7:42

basement of this home that you see

7:45

right here, but it's what investigators would

7:47

find inside, drugs and multiple weapons, along

7:49

with a seven year old who was

7:51

playing inside of that same room. It's

7:54

a mixed bag. Squatters have

7:56

different reasons for doing it. It's

7:58

hard to sort of paint them out. with one brush. Can

8:01

we just define what exactly a

8:03

squatter is in the classical sense

8:06

and what rights a squatter

8:08

may have? Sure. And

8:11

this is something not well

8:13

understood, even by a lot of

8:15

reporters it seems, but a squatter in

8:18

New York and pretty much

8:20

everywhere is someone who unlawfully occupies

8:22

or enters your property, right? So

8:25

they are trespassers. They never had

8:27

permission, whether your home was vacant,

8:29

whether you weren't there, they never

8:32

have been given permission to move into your

8:34

property. Squatters never really

8:36

have rights in a

8:38

true sense. In New York

8:40

and lots of states, there's something

8:42

called adverse possession, which means

8:45

someone is occupying a property for long

8:47

enough where they eventually can be deemed

8:49

the legal owner, the lawful owner. In

8:52

New York that takes 10 years and

8:55

it has continuous and unbroken for

8:57

10 years. So

9:00

you can imagine how rare that is in New York City

9:02

to have a property where the landlord is not going to

9:04

notice you're living there for 10 years. It

9:06

almost never happened. What

9:08

does happen in New York is

9:10

after 30 days, you

9:12

have to be taken to court to be kicked out. Property

9:15

owners must go through the court system to get rid of them, a

9:18

system that could take close to two years

9:20

for resolution. If the laws around

9:23

squatting don't provide this

9:25

huge window to be exploited, then

9:27

what does is the speed of

9:29

the court system. So already, housing

9:32

court was underfunded, housing court

9:34

lawyers are overwhelmed with cases,

9:36

and this got even worse

9:38

during the pandemic. People could stay

9:41

in a home for years, years,

9:43

without having justice brought to them

9:45

for staying essentially for free and

9:47

making a homeowner have to

9:49

pay their bills. So you have a system

9:51

that's gummed up by a huge backlog, and

9:53

that means that even a case that looks

9:56

like it should be open and shut, right,

9:58

so those cops said, Queens

10:00

Okay, You. Say you have a

10:02

lease. Let's let a judge decide. And it's obviously

10:04

fake. You. Know. I have seen leases there very

10:06

clearly downloaded from the first page. On the

10:08

law. I'm not a judge, but if I could figure

10:11

it out, you think they could? Those

10:13

should be very quick and

10:15

they're not any more because

10:17

the court system is so

10:19

mired in all. Of these cases.

10:21

So that's something that. Absolutely improving

10:24

that. Would. Make sure that even

10:26

people who are sort of given the

10:28

benefit of the doubt under the law

10:30

as penance. If they're lying, they would.

10:32

Be kicked out quite quickly.

10:34

so physical laws here are

10:37

pretty clear and. Certainly

10:40

don't accommodate murder or

10:42

fast, and yet there's

10:44

a lot of hysterics.

10:47

Around squatting right now. Does it

10:49

add up to somehow? Yes

10:51

and no. I. Do

10:54

think it's possible that people.

10:56

Are learning how to exploit

10:58

some of these rights that

11:00

tenants and licensees are afforded.

11:03

That it does seem like another

11:05

motivation is. A

11:07

larger dispute between the landlord and

11:09

tenant lobbyists in New York City

11:12

and a really strong reason why

11:14

it's powerful to have a narrative

11:16

were homeowners and landlords are vulnerable

11:18

and the victims in these situations

11:20

when a lot of the times,

11:22

especially New. York Rangers are talking

11:25

about going back their power, right?

11:27

That renters don't have power. So.

11:29

In that sense, squatting becomes

11:32

this really impactful stories. Were

11:34

a homeowner has been menaced. By

11:36

tenants who and run amok. I

11:42

think it taps into a really. Deep Sea or

11:44

whether you're a homeowner not. As

11:46

someone coming into your space and.

11:49

Doing. Something violent you doing something

11:51

them to the property but I

11:53

think on the other side is

11:55

also taps into the housing crisis

11:57

that we do have were some

11:59

people. Don't have housing at

12:01

all and. Are in a

12:04

living in an empty space, right? So

12:06

it gets that kind of both sides

12:08

of an issue that's incredibly. Fraught

12:10

in both directions and for

12:12

homeowners who have to live

12:14

with someone and that. They tried

12:17

to take out. I mean, it's a

12:19

horrible situation and year the cases I've

12:21

covered can be incredibly damaging. Bridget

12:30

read she's with Curbs Curb

12:32

is with New York Magazine.

12:35

Read her work at curbed.com

12:37

the politics of squatting featuring

12:39

wrong defenses ahead. On to

12:41

explain. For

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sweet.com Hi, everyone.

14:08

I'm Brené Brown, and this is Unlocking

14:10

Mess. In this podcast,

14:12

we'll explore ideas, stories, experiences,

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The first episodes are out now. We're

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going to do three or four part series

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stay awkward, brave, and kind. This

15:06

week on The Pitch, it's tween

15:08

time. We're redefining

15:10

feminine hygiene for tweens. You've

15:13

done 5 million sales.

15:15

You did 3 million yet last year. Very

15:17

impressive. Thank you. I really believe in this

15:19

category, but I'm an investor in a company

15:21

called Outflow. And similarly, I'm

15:23

a personal investor in Ruby Love.

15:25

Like Elizabeth and Charles, I have seen

15:28

a lot of these companies. I've

15:30

never made an investment in the space. You

15:32

should be raising more than $500,000. As

15:34

a black woman, for me to come on here and

15:37

say, I'm going to become the new always, that's super

15:39

audacious. And I could, could we

15:41

for sure? What makes it audacious?

15:43

Yeah, let's do it. That's

15:45

what I wanted to hear. I get the sense of how her

15:47

experience might have been a little... This

16:03

week on the pitch Monica Williams

16:06

drops the might. Go. Right

16:08

now and subscribe to The Pits

16:10

wherever you listen to podcasts. See

16:15

it, say be explained.

16:18

See. I'm

16:21

David Weigel and I'm Political Reporter Semaphore.

16:24

And tell us, David, How did you

16:26

come across. The. Story Or

16:28

several stories about squatting. Why

16:31

I read a lot of conservative media.

16:34

Which. Is the driver on a lot

16:36

of public policy? Frankly, I noticed in.

16:38

A number of states New York first

16:41

at them, Florida, Georgia, There. Were

16:43

stories of squatters people living in houses

16:45

that if they didn't owner didn't have

16:47

the right to ramp. And

16:49

then responses are how it's a politician.

16:52

But it started with me just noticing

16:54

that. There. Is a lot of coverage

16:56

of this in places like the New

16:58

York Post and Fox News. and it

17:00

was not trickling over to let's say

17:02

the near times Yet every paper New

17:04

York or Cnn the other competitor on

17:07

cable. And as far as

17:09

The New York Post is concerned,

17:11

I also saw this article about

17:13

this viral tic toc. Somebody

17:18

who doesn't. Say

17:21

where this guy basically promising

17:24

presumably immigrants that they games

17:26

come to the United States

17:28

and just inhabit someone's house

17:30

and taken over. Squatting

17:36

It has gone on for for

17:39

very long time. These recent stories

17:41

of people staying on properties in

17:43

his believe really path of run

17:45

the country poet with surges into

17:47

an immigration story was indeed this

17:49

Venezuelan asylum seekers a talker. Lay

17:51

it on Marino who I was

17:53

not aware of explicitly get squatting

17:55

apparently had been following like many

17:57

pay think that years leaves a.

18:00

into the camera, shouts in a high-pitched

18:02

voice, talked about ways to

18:04

take advantage of the system. My people,

18:06

I have thought about invading a house

18:08

in the United States because

18:10

I learned there's a law that says

18:12

if a house is not inhabited, we

18:15

can expropriate it. And in this case,

18:17

he was talking about how migrants had

18:19

moved in to homes that no one

18:21

was paying attention to, get squatter's rights,

18:24

and then stay there. I think that will

18:26

be my next business, invade abandoned

18:28

houses. There were reports

18:30

of people doing this after the TikTok.

18:32

There only were, and this is very

18:34

common with TikTok-based stories, there

18:36

were only a lot of stories of people reacting to him.

18:39

A Venezuelan national dubbed the migrant influencers

18:41

at the center of controversy this morning,

18:43

he has been using TikTok to coach

18:45

migrants how to live in the U.S.

18:48

by taking advantage of laws protecting squatters.

18:50

That fed into something that was already

18:52

churning really fast on conservative media. It

18:55

wasn't just that there were cases of

18:57

people having their homes taken out from

18:59

under them in New

19:01

York and Georgia and California, Florida. It

19:03

was that this migrant TikToker, who again,

19:05

most people reading this story hadn't heard

19:07

of before they clicked, was

19:09

saying, hey, take advantage of this. Well, as

19:11

an American citizen, you may not be able to

19:13

afford to buy a home, but just know the

19:15

10 million plus e-veagles Biden has let in will

19:18

not lose a wink of sleep as

19:20

they steal, plunder, and pillage what you

19:23

have worked for. And

19:25

so this is not a fake story, but that

19:27

created the impression that this was taking

19:29

the nation by storm, that this is something that might be

19:31

coming to your town. And

19:35

then what happens? Well, states

19:37

start passing bills. In Florida, the story

19:39

more than a year ago was Patti

19:41

Teples, a woman who

19:43

owns rental property in Jacksonville, went

19:46

to check it out, and squatters were living in it, claiming

19:48

they had the right to be there, being very rude with

19:50

her. Your police report says

19:52

this is under investigation. So with that being

19:54

said, we don't have to leave anything until the police comes back

19:57

and tell us what would be the... I have every

19:59

right to be in this town. You don't have any rights to

20:01

be in the house at all. I do not, ma'am.

20:03

You do not. She filmed herself interacting with the squatters,

20:05

got local attention, and that

20:07

was the story in Florida for quite a long time.

20:09

I own the house. It's been a

20:12

year since Patti Peoples found strangers had

20:14

moved into her rental property. Record

20:16

it. They refused to leave, and it

20:18

was peoples who was banned from the

20:20

premises as the case spent weeks moving

20:23

through civil court. In Florida,

20:25

this bill inspired by Patti Peoples'

20:27

work passes unanimously. It gives me

20:29

a real feeling of positive hope

20:32

that we still have the

20:34

ability to discuss challenges

20:36

in our society and work with

20:39

our legislatures in a bipartisan way.

20:41

Ron DeSantis signs it. We are in

20:43

the state of Florida ending the squatters

20:45

scam once and for all. The signing

20:47

ceremony was like a lot of DeSantis

20:50

events where he comes

20:52

out. Good afternoon. Good

20:56

afternoon. It's great to be back here in

20:58

central Florida, I want to thank. There are

21:00

legislators and Republicans in the audience invited

21:03

to be there. Patti Peoples pointed out that

21:05

she was sitting next to the Orange County

21:07

Republican Party fundraiser for Florida, and

21:09

he brought special guests to talk about how, unlike

21:12

some weak governors, DeSantis was acting

21:14

on something that could be a

21:16

problem. In places like New York

21:18

and California, that's exactly what's happening

21:21

in this country. Homes are being

21:23

invaded, and those states

21:25

and their laws are not

21:27

siding with the homeowners, they're siding

21:29

with the squatters. One of the

21:31

stars he brought in that surprised

21:33

people is Flash Shelton, this

21:36

Californian who calls himself the

21:38

Squatter Hunter and helps people

21:40

with problems getting unpaid tenants

21:42

off their property to

21:44

navigate the law, to show up, to draw

21:46

attention to their case. My fight to change

21:48

squatter laws started one year ago, and

21:51

I will not stop fighting until squatter

21:53

laws are changed from coast to coast,

21:56

and homeowners are free from

21:58

their squatters. Thank you. He

22:01

had not acted in Florida, but Francis brought him

22:03

there. He was pretty typical

22:05

of the way squatting is often covered, not as,

22:08

here's a problem for the government to act on, but

22:10

here's a nightmare that happened to this family. Could it

22:12

happen to you? In Georgia, legislation's

22:14

moving. In New York, legislation's moving. It's different

22:17

in each state. One

22:19

factual point that drives

22:21

a lot of New York coverage is that New York

22:23

City has fairly generous renters'

22:26

rights. If you are in a

22:28

property for more than 30 days, it takes a court

22:30

order to remove you. This is the thing that changed

22:32

in Florida. We're now, if somebody's in

22:35

a property, a homeowner with a deed

22:37

comes up and says, I need them out. Cops

22:39

can just remove them. They don't need a court order. That's

22:41

not the law in New York.

22:43

That is what becomes sort of

22:45

the policy focus of these stories. I

22:48

think the reason that these are so attractive

22:50

as stories is they have that

22:52

feature of something horrible happening that

22:54

it's easy to imagine happening to

22:56

you. This is an old nightmare.

22:58

You can find movies like Pacific Heights where squatters

23:01

take advantage of somebody and take their lives from

23:03

out from under them. It's changed a lot. You

23:08

add to that the social media factor and how

23:11

it looks like anyone can do it. You

23:13

add to that the policy that New York has. This

23:16

is a great local news story,

23:18

local TV news story. I'm not saying

23:20

that in a patronizing way. It is

23:22

a dramatic story of the kind that

23:24

people with cameras, filming things live, get

23:26

incredible footage, taping that feeds

23:28

into the conservative

23:30

media framework. The New York

23:32

Post is often the assignment desk

23:35

of Fox News, same corporate owner,

23:37

which goes around the country. One

23:39

thing I saw while tracking coverage of squatting

23:42

was that you could see people re-sharing these

23:44

videos all across the country. You could see

23:46

them sharing them on social media, worrying that

23:48

this would happen. One of the

23:50

first clues I had that this was catching

23:52

on was that I was covering the South

23:54

Carolina primary in February. I was talking to

23:56

Congressman Ralph Norman and a resident

23:58

of a retirement community. that he was

24:00

campaigning in came up to him and

24:02

wanted to interrupt our conversation, which I let him

24:04

do, so he could stitch him when he's allowed

24:06

to, because he wanted to know what he was

24:08

doing to stop the squatters. So these stories were

24:10

going viral in places where people were

24:13

not immediately at threat of being squatted

24:15

or had not heard of anything happening

24:17

like that locally. And we've been talking

24:19

about these laws being a big deal

24:22

in conservative media, but are they getting

24:24

bipartisan support in these states? Yes,

24:26

there's really not any partisan opposition to

24:29

it. Now, most of the

24:31

advocacy you'll hear, most of the surveys

24:33

that are designed to prove that

24:35

squatting is up or that there's a

24:37

trend, they are from landlord organizations. One

24:39

reason I think some media

24:41

outlets, and I can't read their minds, didn't jump on this

24:44

is because it is hard to track. Is this a trend

24:46

that is rising around the country, or is

24:48

this a fake trend because there's a lot

24:51

of interesting footage of this happening? Did you

24:53

ask the same question? Are there more people

24:55

stealing packages, or are there more doorbell cameras

24:57

so we see people stealing them and put

24:59

them on the news? It's one of those

25:01

questions. But there's not a

25:03

partisan organization, no lobbying organization for

25:05

squatters or for people just staying

25:08

in homes that they don't pay for. There

25:10

are some movements around letting

25:12

people stay in abandoned houses, but that's not

25:14

what this is. Does this squatting

25:17

incident, this brief squatting panic we've

25:19

had in the United States these

25:21

past few months, in

25:23

an election year, teach us anything about

25:26

how some viral

25:28

video can become an issue that

25:31

actually leads to legislation being passed? I

25:33

think for some people, this is how

25:35

legislating should work. The fourth estate draws

25:37

attention to a problem. Legislators who weren't

25:39

aware of the problem act on it,

25:42

and everyone walks away happy. This is the

25:44

case in Florida. It was a Democrat in

25:46

Florida who drew attention to this. It was

25:48

a Republican state legislator who saw it on

25:50

Fox and wanted to act on it. And

25:52

then it was a unanimous legislature that voted

25:55

for it. So this

25:57

is how a lot of legislation passes. People

25:59

become... aware of the problem and they act. And

26:02

I see more happy endings

26:04

than I see partisan rancor on

26:06

this. I honestly do. Even

26:12

though this didn't germinate in progressive media or

26:14

NPR or something like that, no one had

26:16

a problem with it when the attention was

26:19

drawn to it. It was just the difference

26:21

really was who saw this as a nightmare

26:23

that they wish didn't happen to them, who

26:25

saw it as a public policy issue to

26:27

fix. That was the difference between I think

26:29

this being covered as a nightmare, your lifestyle

26:31

magazine story, as you've seen in the past

26:33

and being covered on local TV news. So local TV

26:35

news drawing attention to something and people acting. That

26:38

is how a lot of it might be happening. David

26:44

Weigel, politics, camofor.com. Our

26:47

show today was produced by Abishai

26:49

Artsy. It was fact checked by

26:51

Laura Bullard. It was mixed by

26:54

David Herman and edited by Matthew

26:56

Collette with help from Amina Alsadi.

26:58

I'm Sean Ramos for him. And

27:01

this is Today Explained. todayexplained.com.