Posted on 03/29/2024 1:37:40 PM PDT by nickcarraway
It was a triumphant day for Patti Peeples, but one thing didn’t sit right with her.
For more than a year, the 61-year-old Florida landlord fought to tighten the state’s law against squatting, a crime she saw up close when two women faked a rental agreement and occupied one of her Jacksonville properties. She’d done interview after interview, worked closely with her local legislators, and testified in Tallahassee. The result, a tough new law that would let sheriffs evict squatters without entering a lengthy legal process, passed with unanimous bipartisan support.
On Wednesday, invited by her Republican state representative, Peeples arrived at the bill signing in Orlando. The longtime Democrat took her seat next to a local Republican fund-raiser as Gov. Ron DeSantis described squatter horror stories from New York. “Illegal aliens” were “instructing other foreigners how to come into this country and commandeer property,” he said; then he introduced Flash Shelton, a “squatter hunter” from California, who thanked the governor for taking action.
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“What passes muster in New York and California isn’t passing muster here,” said DeSantis. Peeples had won; but how, she wondered, had her cause suddenly been turned into a political cudgel for conservatives?
“This is the good and the bad of politics in our country,” she told Semafor. “It was nonsensical to showcase an individual who had nothing to do with the bill being written and passed, doesn’t live in the state of Florida, and makes money from his business that uses tactics to remove squatters that could be copied and increase the chance of violence.”
In multiple states, including New York and Florida, viral stories about people seizing homes they don’t own have inspired legislation to stop it. There’s no organized partisan opposition to those bills. But Republicans have seized the initiative, warning of a squatter crisis inflamed by liberal crime policies and illegal immigration; a popular migrant TikTok influencer’s video urging people to “invade” and “seize” homes burned through conservative media just as the Florida bill was passing.
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“There are challenges, with adverse possession being exploited to benefit unethical behavior by a few,” said Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani, who like every member of her party supported the anti-squatter bill. “The rhetoric the governor used was never mentioned anywhere during the [legislative] process. Leave it to DeSantis to make every issue partisan.”
Title iconDAVID’S VIEW Back in February, while I was talking to South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman at a Nikki Haley rally, a voter stepped in and asked me to wrap it up, so he could talk to the congressman about “squatters.” He was worried about them stealing homes in his retirement community; Norman urged him to talk to his sheriff, because Congress would be too slow to act.
This was how I realized that a story that wasn’t part of the campaign discourse — even as it was covered frequently by local news — was breaking through. Conservative media was all over this topic, and politicians were slow to catch up.
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Fox News and the New York Post, the brightest suns in Rupert Murdoch’s media galaxy, have heavily covered a string of unrelated, sometimes frightening stories involving squatters, including one incident where a woman was killed by the people who had taken over her Manhattan apartment. DeSantis’s signing ceremony was streamed live by Fox — a throwback to the pre-primary days when he’d ride the conservative zeitgeist to friendly coverage.
But this isn’t like the partisan squabbles over Florida’s parental rights law, or shuttling asylum-seekers to the bluest possible cities. In Georgia, like Florida, there was no opposition to anti-squatter legislation that moved after weeks of stories about a growing crisis. In South Carolina, a version introduced by a Republican state legislator running for Congress was co-sponsored by half of his colleagues, in both parties.
And in New York, where Democrats hold a legislative supermajority, Republican Assemblyman Jake Blumencranz introduced his anti-squatter bill with Democratic co-sponsors. His own Fox News interview started with the viral “invasion” TikTok, as a study in what he needed to stop.
“Unfortunately, videos like that one you saw on TikTok is one of many of people teaching others how they can utilize New York’s laws to their advantage,” said Blumencranz, whose law would rewrite the state’s definition of “tenant” to exclude people staying in homes they don’t pay for.
New York City’s laws, which DeSantis singled out on Wednesday, are unusually generous to tenants; if they’ve occupied a home for more than 30 days, owners who want them out have to go to court. All of that was laid out in a March 21 report, by a New York ABC affiliate, that filmed an owner/squatter nightmare — a woman being handcuffed after the illegal tenants she’d just ejected called police and brandished phony documents.
That story, combined with the “invasion” TikTok, got politicians scrambling; Queens councilwoman Vickie Paladino rallied fretful New Yorkers on Monday, proposing a bill that would extend the 30-day rule to 180 days. Even when there’s no Democratic opposition, it’s a simple story for Republicans to tell: A sclerotic government is letting criminals run over people like you.
Title iconTHE VIEW FROM PROGRESSIVES Some progressive writers argue that the squatting stories have been blown out of proportion. In Popular Information, Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria recently broke down what they call the “hysteria” over the issue, which they said was “distracting attention from America’s actual housing crisis.”
But even among activists on the left, criticisms of the anti-squatter proposals have been relatively mild. In Florida, the only skeptics of the new law were housing-rights advocates. Florida Rising lobbied to change the bill, warning that some people living illegally in homes might be taken advantage of by phony landlords. Legislators adopted their concerns in the final bill, and the group took a neutral position. But Cynthia Laurent, a housing justice campaigner at Florida Rising, said that “this was not coming up as an issue in this state” until recently.
“We heard about Patti Peeples’s situation, and that was horrible, but we wanted to make sure that this didn’t have impacts on people struggling to stay housed,” said Laurent. “What we’ve seen is that when some of these laws are implemented, working class Black and brown folks are the ones who end up being harmed.”
Squatters are thieves and criminals so they naturally align with Democrats. Law breakers are a core constituency of the Democrat party.
“What passes muster in New York and California isn’t passing muster here,” said DeSantis. Peeples had won; but how, she wondered, had her cause suddenly been turned into a political cudgel for conservatives?”
Perhaps because Democrats in many states are DEFENDING THE SQUATTERS - so go ask the Democrats, instead of blaming Republicans like DeSantis.
Marxist love them. They see them as proto-revolutionaries.
“You would think that would be a uniting issue. Maybe the pro-squatters have never actually worked to buy their own property.”
Why? Property rights are the basis of freedom in America. Once the Democrats come up with a strategy, they will challenge EVERY BILL designed to end squatting in the courts and their judges will give the victories. Just watch...
Yes. Let’s test this by sending squatters and Central American gang member and rapist illegal aliens to live in their places.
I’m sure NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) will come to the fore quickly.
One of the Marxist goals is abolishment of all property rights. Klaus Schwab said “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy.”
The collectivists have been allowed to run rampant for far too long.
Unfortunately, sometimes good people who thought they were entering in to a legitimate contract get swindled because the lease turned out to be fake and the "landlord" (who they'd been paying money to) has no ownership of the property.
All the more reason to do your due diligence when renting a place to live.
“1600 Pennsylvania Ave. has plenty of room for squatters.”
There is one in the White House right now claiming he is President. He calls himself Joe Biden.
But fail to get jabbed or wear a mask and off to jail!
Above is a Daily Mail article about it.
It is in Bellevue, Washington state.
The county, under the guise of tenant’s fair rights act or whatever have given the squatter another few months to live there. The court also granted the squatter a restraining order against the landlord - the landlord has to stay 1000 feet from the property. A $2 million dollar home that he owns!
The squatter and his wife make over $400k a year. The squatter paid the first and last month’s rent when he signed the lease. He hasn’t paid anything since for over a year.
There have been protests outside the home for the last couple of weekends. Home is on a nice suburban lot in a neighborhood.
Comrade Caprugina says thirteen families can live in that one house!
If he rented the property to someone who isn't paying his rent that's not a squatter issue and Florida's new law isn't about that. It's about someone illegally moving into someone else's property without permission and with no type of rental or lease agreement from the owner of the property.
There was a reason why our Founding Fathers only property voters could vote.
Most renters are liberals.
Most property owners are conservatives.
So obviously the liberal leftist scum are the ones who are doing these crimes. They worm their way into a place like a blood weevil.
Excellent point that the tenant not paying is different than a squatter. Although the outcome is probably the same for the landlord.
There was a guy in Portland, OR that found a lady camping on his property just down the hill and behind some trees in the home he lived in.
He told her to leave as she was trespassing. She cried and said she had all of her stuff here and she can’t just leave, and asked for a couple of days so she could move her stuff. The homeowner, being a nice guy, said yes.
Well, a few days passed and she had not moved anything or left. The guy called the police and he explained the situation. Turns out that because he didn’t kick her off right away and allowed her to stay - she wasn’t trespassing anymore. It turned into a “tenant” relationship so she had a month or more before she had to move, he had to provide legal notice, etc.
Strip them of everything, including their pride, and throw then aside naked to try & survive. If they do, repat wash & rinse until they day they die. 🙁
The Florida dem politicians are just mad that repubs beat them to making it a partisan issue to hopefully help get votes.
“Peeples had won; but how, she wondered, had her cause suddenly been turned into a political cudgel for conservatives?”
Also because voters are talking to their representatives about squatters. Weigle tries to blame conservative media, but he himself acknowledges that the issue is covered frequently by local media. This coverage includes:
- a string of unrelated, sometimes frightening stories involving squatters, including one incident where a woman was killed by the people who had taken over her Manhattan apartment.
- reports of illegal aliens instructing other foreigners how to come into this country and commandeer property.
- viral stories in multiple states, including New York and Florida, about people seizing homes they don’t own, which is inspiring legislation to stop it.
- videos like the one on TikTok teaching others how they can utilize New York’s laws to their advantage.
Far from being a polical cudgel, these stories are prompting Democrats and Republicans alike to tighten up laws that protect renters so they cannot be abused by these illegitimate squatters.
It took me a day to get the Pacific Heights reference, LOL!
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