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There was a reader comment on one of the sites where this story appeared, and if what he said was true then he's a genius. He was dealing with a situation where he wanted to evict someone who was 3-4 months behind on the rent, but he knew that a formal eviction process would cost more than he was willing to pay. So he did the following:

1. Notified the tenant that he was going to enter the property on a certain date and time to fix the boiler (which actually did need fixing). She was away when he entered so ...

2. He fixed the boiler, but before he left the house he removed the front door from its hinges -- leaving the interior of the home exposed to the elements.

3. Made an anonymous phone call to the town's health officer, reporting the open/exposed home as if he was a neighbor who just happened to see it.

4. The health officer came to the property, boarded up the door, posted an "uninhabitable dwelling" notice on the plywood board, and ran yellow tape all over the outside of the house.

5. A couple of months later, the owner (who never heard from the tenant in all this time) simply had the door fixed, tossed all the contents of the home out in the garbage, and paid a small fine to get the certificate of occupancy restored.

LMAO.

if what he said was true then he's a genius

He's a fool. Squatters don't play by the rules. Thwart them and you're likely to get broken windows, broken furnace, irreparably damaged carpeting, missing copper plumbing, and a code officer on your back.
And the judge will still favor the squatter, who can't be sued for what he doesn't have and never will.

The story you read does not factor in the landlord's responsibility in the thinking of code official, but if a dwelling's uninhabitable the owner is usually told to bring it up to code pronto, or face fines which may be hundreds of dollars per day. Code officials, like judges, know all the landlord shenanigans and have no patience with them.

Landlording is an extreme sport.

I knew a landlord who used to do the ‘remove the hinges from the door’ thing. He didn’t give proper notice for the fake repairs, either. One day an apartment renter returned to find the doors gone and the home vandalized and robbed so the tenant called the police.

The police showed up and charged the landlord with breaking and entering in addition to theft of property.

I can’t speak for all states, but there are some where the landlord is absolutely not allowed to enter the premises without the consent of the tenant unless it’s a life/death emergency. The tenant rents that space and it becomes the tenant’s legal home as long as there is no eviction etc.

If the landlord goes in unauthorized, he/she has committed a crime. It’s breaking and entering.

In some places, rental laws differ depending upon the type of unit being rented. Some places have laws pertaining to apartments which differ from stand alone houses which differs from a mobile home.

Laws can change depending on whether the unit is part of a Federal housing unit, receives a majority of it’s rents from Federal funding, or is entirely privately paid.

It sounds like an injustice against the tenant in the OP, but there are some pretty shady/nasty landlords out there who have no regard for tenants, either.