A vigilante group in Southern California is taking the squatting crisis into its own hands by removing the unruly tenants themselves.
Though they officially launched as a business little more than a year ago, the Squatter Squad is now fielding up to 30 calls a day from victims complaining that someone has broken into their home and changed the locks.
Entire communities in pockets of the Golden State have been ravaged by criminals turning properties into strip clubs and drug dens, hosting all-night raves, or simply claiming tenant rights without any form of agreement.
The worst part is, the cops can do little to stop it – if a squatter refuses to leave, homeowners have to wrangle with a heavily-backlogged court system and launch a civil lawsuit to get them out – a process which can take years.
‘This happens every day,’ Squatter Squad member Lando told DailyMail.com. ‘This can happen to anyone who owns property – we just don’t realize it.’
A vigilante group in Southern California is taking the squatting crisis into its own hands by removing the unruly tenants themselves. (Pictured: members of the group known as the Squatter Squad)
The core Squatter Squad leadership team comprises Lando, 56, two of his longtime friends, aged 42 and 58, and a 38-year-old veteran they recruited later
Lando, 56, is one of the four-man super squad heading up a larger team which takes on the unruly home invaders of Southern California, particularly Los Angeles and the San Diego area.
The core crew comprises two of his longtime friends, aged 42 and 58, and a 38-year-old veteran they recruited later.
‘He’s very tall, he has a lot of military experience – he uses his training,’ Lando told DailyMail.com, who himself enters the properties armed with a gun and pepper spray.
Though he couldn’t go into precise details about how they navigate the dangerous waters of squatter territory, he said their methods include ‘out-squatting the squatters’ and attempting to negotiate.
Lando launched the Squatter Squad as a business little over a year ago after several years providing similar services removing people who had illegally occupied RVs, usually drug addicts.
But the squad now often finds itself operating on the intersection of luxury and depravity – tackling drug addicts and gang members who have taken multi-million dollar homes from wealthy investors in the heart of Los Angeles.
Lando told DailyMail.com the full story while driving to a ‘very nice home’ which had been occupied by at least 20 squatters on Friday, where he was planning to start negotiations to reclaim the property.
‘Even though I’ve been dealing with squatters for many years, last year I decided to make it more of a branded functioning business that people could actually hire us for because I could see such a need for it,’ he said.
‘From day one it just kind of exploded.’
Though they officially launched as a business little more than a year ago, the Squatter Squad is now fielding up to 30 calls a day from victims complaining that someone has broken into their home and changed the locks. (Pictured: the four-man leadership team of the Squatter Squad)
Though he couldn’t go into precise details about how they navigate the dangerous waters of squatter territory, Lando said their methods include ‘out-squatting the squatters’ and attempting to negotiate
A photograph showing the aftermath of squatters at one Southern California property raided by the Squatter Squad
He said demand for their services since, which cost a few thousand dollars depending on the complexity of the situation, has been like ‘a tidal wave’.
He added that the situation had been exacerbated by Covid-era laws designed to allow tenants greater leniency, which are now being abused by illegal squatters with no tenancy agreements.
‘We’re getting probably 10 to 20 calls a day of legitimate situations,’ Lando said. ‘That’s on top of around 10 emails daily that have to do with someone needing help.’
The Squatter Squad operates in Southern California and is expanding to the Bay Area
He added that Squatter Squad clients tend to be a 50/50 split between real estate investors and lenders who have run into trouble with squatters, and homeowners who have been kicked out of their own residences.
The properties targeted range from ‘a dilapidated house’ which squatter’s rights were initially designed for – if the squatter intends to improve the property and no-one else owns it – ‘all the way to a mansion’.
‘There’s a potential client who called us about their mansion in Ventura County, where squatters who are more professional types – a husband, a wife and their daughter,’ Lando told DailyMail.com
‘His home is worth millions of dollars and they just feel entitled that they can be there.
‘The woman will literally sprawl herself out in front of the driveway into the mansion so that no-one can get further up the driveway and she’ll just lay there until they leave. That sounds crazy but it’s the truth.’
And it’s not just the homeowners who suffer – the whole neighborhood can be devastated by just one set of squatters on their street.
‘There was a gentleman who literally broke down on the phone with me just over a week ago,’ Lando said.
‘Picture someone in their eighties, they’ve lived in their home with their wife for 30 years.
‘The home next door is now owned by a corporation and it had been vacant and what seemed to be the worst imaginable type of gang members move in.
‘Now his wife can’t even go to her car and go to the grocery store without feeling like her life is in danger because they’re standing outside staring at her.
‘This is so stressful for the neighbors – they feel like they’re a prisoner in their own home.’
He said that although a large number of squatters are homeless drug addicts or gang members, there’s a growing demographic of intelligent cranks seeking to exploit the lax laws in states like California.
‘They are becoming more sophisticated, definitely,’ Lando said.
‘There’s an almost entitled attitude… I think a lot of it is because it’s in the press a lot and the wrong type of person is like: “I’ll do that, why not”.
‘If someone found an easy way to rob a bank, there’s going to be a certain percentage of the population would who would just go do that, and that’s how squatting is.’
‘They tend to be educated people that have an unlawful attitude, or aspect to their way of thinking,’ he added.
‘They’re intelligent, they’re entitled, they probably have a psychiatric label – I don’t know how to label them – sociopaths maybe.
‘They will spend hours researching the law to find out how to do this. They don’t mind breaking the law and hurting other people’s lives.’
To tackle such people, the Squatter Squad uses complex and varying methods tailored to each individual situation.
Lando warned homeowners against trying to physically evict their squatters due to the complexity of the law surrounding squatter’s rights and the types of people they’re dealing with.
The LAPD descended on the $4.3 million Beverly Hills party mansion in January following reports of a home invasion
In one extreme case where one resident attempted to deal with squatters himself, he ended up being arrested by cops for ‘trespass’ in his own home.
‘We have a new client who called yesterday,’ Lando said. ‘I gave him basic information about what we do. He’s around 75, he’s a gentleman who wants to take the law into is own hands.
‘Two women took over his home, without a doubt they are illegal trespassers. But the day before yesterday, the cops turned up and arrested him for trespassing his own property, and the women are still there.
‘We’re going to help him with this case and hopefully turn the tables on these illegal trespassers… but this is an example how just giving out our methods instead of letting us do the work can cause more harm than good.’
On top of this, some brazen squatters are even posing as the landlords to sublet rooms to unwitting new tenants.
‘These people who thought they were legal tenants have to be ejected and then they have nowhere else to live,’ Lando said. ‘There have been people who have committed suicide over this.’
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) defines a squatter as ‘someone who resides on a property to which he or she has no legal title, right, or lease’.
They differ from trespassers because they’ve actually moved in to the property, and have often changed the locks – and many go as far as registering utilities in their name, receiving mail, and creating fraudulent lease agreements.
Once a squatter is in a property, it can take years to resolve through legal means, as the homeowner must serve the squatter with an eviction notice, which has to be processed through California’s heavily backlogged court system.
Leonel Moreno, who goes by @leitooficial_25 online and appears to be a Venezuelan migrant, has advised his followers on how to ‘invade’ American homes and invoke squatter’s rights, making it difficult for them to be removed from properties
Moreno’s video comes amid a squatting crisis in the US. Homeowner Adele Andolaro caught three squatters in this Flushing, Queens, New York home earlier this week
There’s even a shadowy underworld of grifters and TikTokers selling guides for step-by-step instructions on ‘how to squat’ and get away with it – and many know how to play the court system to postpone hearings to extend their stay.
LASD said that squatting is a ‘nationwide problem’ which ‘may be on the rise’ according to their records.
The department says the best way to deal with squatters is to ‘prevent them from moving in’ – and the department even provides a help sheet for investors with vacant properties.
Squatters can even claim ownership of a home after living there continuously for five years if they have been paying property taxes.
They must also meet other requirements – like having made improvements to the property, and the owner must have known of their presence and not made any efforts to evict them.
Police can’t evict squatters because they ‘cannot act as a judge and jury of a situation’ which is considered to be a civil dispute, not a criminal matter, Lando said.
‘It’s frustrating but the police aren’t equipped to determine who the rightful owner of the property is,’ he told DailyMail.com.
‘They say basically it’s a civil matter, you need to take that to court, it’s a he-said she-said kind of thing.’
But there’s a sliver of hope on the horizon for concerned homeowners. Florida recently became the first state with lax squatter laws to start reforming them, and Lando said he thinks the new legislation will work.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared the squatter scam has ended in his state after he signed a measure into law that would reduce the time it takes for homeowners to get law enforcement to remove unwanted tenants
Florida cops dismantle ‘boobytrapped meth island’ after squatters set up makeshift camp
Florida governor Ron DeSantis triumphantly announced on Wednesday that he’s signed a bill to expedite the process for evicting unwanted tenants and end the ‘squatter scam’ once and for all.
The new law establishes that squatters may be removed by law enforcement if just three conditions are met.
First, the individual has illegally entered the property and remains there. Second, the individual has been directed to leave the premises. And third, the individual is not a current or former tenant engaged in a legal dispute with the owner.
If all three conditions are met, DeSantis says authorities will remove the squatters immediately. The bill will go into effect July 1, 2024.
‘We are putting an end to the squatters scam in Florida,’ he said while announcing the new law this week.
‘While other states are siding with the squatters, we are protecting property owners and punishing criminals looking to game the system.’
Lando said the law would make it ‘much easier for the homeowner to regain the property’.
‘There’s nothing stopping other states from doing the same, and I think once they see what’s going on in Florida it could happen everywhere,’ he said.
‘It might take a while. As much as we do this for a business, I want to see laws change.
‘But I can see states dragging their feet or maybe not making the laws strict enough.’
The Squatter Squad’s work in California is a microcosm of the burgeoning crisis continuing to expand across North America.
Susana and Joseph Landa, both 68, purchased the perfect mansion in Little Neck, Long Island, where they planned to enjoy retirement
The $2million home in Little Neck, Long Island, was purchased by the Landa family in October
While Flores is living rent free in the family’s dream home, they are paying all of the bills to keep the house up and running
In Queens, New York, an elderly couple with a Downs Syndrome son were left unable to move into their $2 million home after a caretaker for the previous owner claimed rights to the property.
Male model Brett Flores, 32, reportedly wormed his way into the life of the previous homeowner – gay, dementia-stricken watch executive Bernard Fernandez, before he died aged 83 last year.
Flores then allegedly forced others out of the home claiming Fernandez had left him the property, leaving Susana and Josepha Landa unable to move in, despite the couple purchasing the house.
In the Hollywood Hills, one brazen squatter even took over a seven-bedroom property in January and created fake leases to rent out rooms to OnlyFans models who trashed the property.
The same month, a dramatic police raid descended on a $4.3million mansion in Beverly Hills where squatters had been tormenting their celebrity neighbors with nightly raves.
The unruly residents had been charging $75 cover fees in the property which sits just yards away from LeBron James’ home.
In a rare case of squatception, one California handyman took revenge on squatters who resided in his mom’s home through kicking them out by squatting there himself.
Flash Shelton, from Simi Valley, said he hacked the system by waiting for the squatters to leave and then using their own tactics against them.