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A suspected squatter fatally shot two workers Saturday on Zenner Street, and police are seeking information on a subject in connection with the shooting, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said Sunday. Police said they responded around 12:30 p.m. to a residence on the 100 block of Zenner Street, where two males had been shot. Both men were later declared deceased. Crime Stoppers WNY identified the victims Sunday as Buffalo residents Babul Meah and Abu Yousuf. Gramaglia said that the two men were there to work on the house, as it was for sale and due to close soon. One of...

New York’s squatter nightmare has gotten so far out of control that even liberal lawmakers are finally moving to plug the loopholes that have facilitated the crisis. Democratic as well as Republican lawmakers in Albany are pushing measures to crack down on the outrageous scourge, including one bill introduced by lefty Sen. John Liu (D-Queens) that was included in the just-completed state-budget agreement. Liu credited coverage by The Post and others for bringing “to our attention a problem that needed to be addressed.” You bet it needs addressing. Until now, anyone who stayed in a home beyond for a certain...

"On June 18, 2021 in Florida, officers responded to a trespassing call at an apartment complex. The landlord reported that a woman was trying to claim residency in one of her vacant apartments. The landlord stated that the apartment had been empty on June 6 when her plumber had gone in to start a project, but upon re-entering the apartment on June 18, the plumber found an unknown female inside saying she lived there. When an officer arrived on scene, the suspected squatter had left the scene, but shortly thereafter, the woman came down the street yelling that she lived...

DENVER — Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill into law Monday that officially eliminates most restrictions on how many unrelated roommates can live together in Colorado. House Bill 1007 prohibits local governments from enacting occupancy limits, which Polis and other critics of the policy have derided as discriminatory and outdated. Roughly two dozen Colorado cities have such restrictions on the books, though lawmakers said that only a few — including the college town of Fort Collins — actively enforce them. “This issue is both a housing issue and a civil rights issue,” Polis said during a bill-signing ceremony outside the...

A crafty squatter bilked his landlord of at least $72,000 in rent for his Lower East Side apartment — then made tens of thousands in profit by subletting the unit, the owner charges. For three years, computer programmer Thor Boucher hasn’t paid a cent of his bargain-rate $2,000-a-month, two-bedroom, one-bathroom Essex Street pad, claiming he didn’t have to because the building was noisy and shook, according to landlord Ed Yau and Manhattan Civil Court documents. The alleged freeloader had no qualms renting the space out, though, charging as much as $1950 per room monthly since November 2021 on platforms including...

One of the alleged gun-toting Bronx migrant squatters — a suspected member of Venezuela’s Tren De Aragua gang — was taken into the custody of federal immigration authorities on Friday, officials said. Yerbin Benjamin Lozada Munoz was one of five suspects released without bail by Bronx judges after they were busted by the NYPD in March inside a borough apartment with a cache of guns and drugs, according to authorities. On Monday, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Lozada was busted in Nassau County, Long Island, on felony charges of grand larceny in the fourth degree. ICE said it lodged...

An outraged Texas couple is pleading with lawmakers as their contractor turned squatter refuses to leave their property. Yudith Matthews and Abram Mendez said they hired a contractor to complete tile work for their fixer-upper San Antonio property. But after they fired him for not completing the work, the contractor refused to leave and is now reportedly living in the house. The couple even filmed the unwanted guest climbing through their window despite being asked to leave. 'We don't have any protection. There's legislators that are out there, who are making headway, but we need more headway across America to...

Florida recently passed a law that eliminates squatter's rights.. Squatting laws have become a frequent target of exploitation by savvy criminals who fraudulently move into vacant homes across the nation. Experts warn that the problem could be compounded by the ongoing immigration crisis, with migrants catching wind of the laws and taking advantage of them. "I have thought about invading a house in the United States," migrant Leonel Moreno said in Spanish in a TikTok video that went viral last month. "I found out that there is a law that says that if a house is not inhabited, we can...

Imagine this: You head to Florida to look after a sick family member, only to come back and find squatters have broken into your house, sold all your belongings, and now, unbelievably, are legally considered “tenants.” So now you’re stuck shelling out for a lawyer to get them out. It sounds like a wild story, doesn’t it? But, shockingly, this is the reality for a woman from Texas who left her home to care for her sick mother. The New York Post: Squatters turned a Texas woman’s home into a “drug den” and sold her possessions at a yard sale...

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.

An anti-squatting "professional" is warning homeowners against taking squatters to court, amid ongoing issues relating to property rights. Flash Shelton, who describes himself as a professional squatter remover, on Wednesday spoke to Fox News' America's Newsroom about how to handle squatting incidents and different ways to remove uninvited dwellers from your home. "First thing, call law enforcement, it's dangerous, don't do anything yourself, it's property, don't risk your life. Call law enforcement and when they tell you there's nothing they can do, contact SquatterHunters.com, let us assess the situation, before you hire an attorney and go to civil process," Shelton...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have arrested a viral TikToker who attracted notoriety through a video advocating that illegals use squatter's rights to effectively take over American homes, Fox News reported, citing an "ICE official." Agents with the Detroit field office reportedly arrested Leonel Moreno in Gahanna, Ohio. An ICE spokesperson told Just the News on Thursday that "Leonel Moreno is an unlawfully present Venezuelan non-citizen, who illegally entered the country April 23, 2022. Moreno was placed into the ATD [Alternatives to Detention] program by Border Patrol and was told to report to Enforcement and Removal Operations office within 60...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Squatters beware. Florida's latest law makes it easier to remove those illegally staying on private property. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 621 into law Wednesday, eliminating squatters' rights in the state. "We are putting an end to the squatters scam in Florida," DeSantis said. "While other states are siding with the squatters, we are protecting property owners and punishing criminals looking to game the system." DeSantis said the law provides homeowners with remedies against squatting and increases penalties for squatters.

New York’s most notorious squatting story is taking a new twist: The “squatter” at the center of it says he’s the victim — and will get out once he is paid for “upgrades” to the house. Range Rover-driving Brian Rodriguez told The Post he wants $18,000 to hand back the home in Flushing — and claimed all he was doing was trying to start a “side hustle” to cash in on the migrant crisis. The bizarre saga began when Adele Andaloro was handcuffed by police after a fiery caught-on-camera standoff as she tried to throw out squatters from the $1...

If you own a home and don’t want to lose it, keep reading. Homeowners who go on vacation or a business trip, even for just a week, are returning to find their house overtaken by trespassers who fraudulently claim a right to be there. It’s happening to tens of thousands of homeowners from New York City to Atlanta and Los Angeles. When owners call the police, they’re told police can’t help. It’s a civil matter, and they have to file an eviction lawsuit, which can drag on for months or years because housing courts are backlogged. Meanwhile, owners are out...

A Venezuelan migrant infamous for sharing tips on how to invade vacant homes and live off the US government is on the run from ICE, it's been revealed. Leonel Moreno's TikTok account @leitooficial_25, where he had amassed half a million followers, has been suspended after his controversial videos went viral. A spokesperson for TikTok told DailyMail.com the platform doesn't allow users to promote criminal activities.

A “greedy and grotesque” LA woman has been sentenced to 20 years behind bars for fraudulently obtaining real-estate property in a multimillion-dollar squatting scheme that included dismembering and disposing of a body. Caroline Joanne Herrling, 44, of West Hills was sentenced Friday to 240 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $3,887,051 in restitution for the elaborate racket, the US Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a statement. “This defendant’s misconduct was both greedy and grotesque, causing profound pain to the victims and their loved ones,” US Attorney Martin Estrada said.

“It’s too easy to forge a deed and record it,” Real estate attorney Richard Alembik told WSB-TV. “It’s a big problem nowadays, because of the fact that e-filing, the e-recording of deeds is so easy. It’s very easy to record forged deeds.” Alembik said notaries don’t check the identification of the people who submit the documents to verify if they are the rightful homeowners. Victims of fraud who have proof to be the rightful homeowners can still be ordered by a judge to move out and pay fines, according to the outlet. An elderly Georgia homeowner was forced out of...

An elderly Georgia homeowner was forced out of his house and arrested when an alleged swindler used fraudulent documents to claim ownership of the property. Charles and Charmaine Allman lived in the same Stone Mountain, Ga. home — located 16 miles east of Atlanta — for the last two decades before officials told the couple Tuesday that they no longer owned the house and had to vacate. “They made us feel like we were squatters,” Charmaine Allman told WSB-TV. “Just tossed my stuff out like it was trash.”

The legal homeowner recently had been arrested for unlawful eviction after trying to remove the squatters Two of the three squatters who allegedly took over a woman’s $1 million home in New York City fled the property after recently having a tense stand-off with the property’s owner and facing "vigilantes" who tried to evict the illegal tenants, a new report details. Adele Andaloro, 47, said her property in Flushing, Queens, had been taken over by a group of squatters while the woman tried to sell the property last month. The home had been owned by Andaloro’s parents, who had left...