Posted on 07/06/2026 5:55:29 AM PDT by Red Badger
There is a word for demanding tens of thousands of dollars from a man before you’ll give him back what you took from him. That word is extortion. But in Los Angeles, when the thing taken is a house, the state calls it a landlord-tenant dispute and tells the victim to hire a lawyer.
That single act of miscategorization, repeated thousands of times across California, has built an entire criminal industry, and the people who investigate it for a living are now begging the city to admit what everyone already knows.
Former LAPD Lt. Moses Castillo and veteran private investigator Michael Youssef told Fox News Digital that professional squatters are exploiting fake leases, forged documents, and legal loopholes to take over homes in Los Angeles, and that many of these cases extend far beyond traditional landlord-tenant disputes into allegations of fraud, identity theft, forged property documents, and in some instances gang activity, narcotics activity, and extortion-style demands for money.
Both men are calling for a dedicated anti-squatter task force so law enforcement can distinguish a genuine tenant dispute from an organized crime operation wearing a tenant dispute as a costume.
Youssef’s description of what happens to these homeowners should be read carefully, because it is not the language of a housing problem. “They basically hijack the property and they hold it hostage until you pay them off,” he said. “It’s almost like the property is being held for ransom.”
And the ransoms are real. Castillo described homeowners forced to hire attorneys and private investigators before ultimately paying so-called cash-for-keys settlements just to persuade unlawful occupants to leave. “You want me out? Then pay me $20,000. Pay me $40,000,” Castillo said. “That’s what’s happening.”
Youssef says he has seen worse. In one Long Beach case, he said, the occupants demanded half a million dollars.
An Industry With Its Own Consultants
What separates this from the drifter-in-a-vacant-house story of decades past is the professionalization. Youssef says squatters have grown increasingly sophisticated, using online forums, social media groups, and what he calls “criminal consultants” who provide step-by-step instructions on exploiting tenant-protection laws.
“They give you step-by-step what to do and what laws to invoke,” he said. Occupants learn how to manufacture documentation supporting false residency claims and how to drag out procedural delays that were designed to protect actual tenants from actual abusive landlords.
Think about what that means. California’s tenant protections have become so lopsided, so mechanically exploitable, that a cottage industry of instructors now teaches strangers how to weaponize them against homeowners. The law was written to shield the vulnerable. It now functions as a burglary manual with a table of contents.
This is not a fringe observation. Flash Shelton, whose anti-squatter confrontations became an A&E series this year, told Fox News that a squatter merely has to create reasonable doubt to be treated as a full tenant, with no requirement to produce a lease or show rent payments.
“If you have possession you have rights,” he said. “The whole system is wrong.”
One alleged serial squatter who worked her way through Malibu homes is now the subject of a Hulu docuseries, accused of charming her way into houses and refusing to leave, with alleged victims including an elderly widow and a yoga teacher — accusations she denies. When your state’s property law produces enough victims to sustain a streaming franchise, the problem has graduated from anecdote to genre.
The Categorical Error at the Heart of It
Castillo put his finger on the precise failure. “When somebody breaks locks, breaks windows, gains access to a vacant property and then claims residency, that’s not a housing dispute,” he said. It is breaking and entering followed by fraud. But because California processes nearly all of it through civil eviction machinery, the burglar gets due process designed for tenants while the homeowner gets a court date months away and a legal bill in the meantime.
Trespassers routinely persuade responding officers they are authorized occupants by presenting false documentation or claiming an oral lease exists, forcing owners into eviction actions that can take up to a year.
Other states looked at this and acted. Florida’s HB 621, signed by Gov. DeSantis with unanimous bipartisan support, allows a property owner to request that law enforcement immediately remove a squatter who unlawfully entered, refused a directive to leave, and is not a legitimate tenant in a legal dispute. Unanimous. Bipartisan. Even Florida Democrats understood that defending the home is not a partisan position.
California had its chance to do the same. Senate Bill 448 would define a squatter in statute, create a sworn demand-to-vacate process, require law enforcement to remove verified unlawful occupants without unreasonable delay, and make it a felony to present false documentation to interfere with a removal. What happened to it? It was held in committee and carried over to the 2026 session.
The best Sacramento has actually delivered is SB 602, which extended the validity of no-trespass letters from 30 days to a year — a genuine but modest improvement that does nothing once a squatter has manufactured a residency claim. Meanwhile, procedural changes elsewhere in the code have made evictions slower, not faster.
The First Duty of Government
The task force Castillo and Youssef propose is a reasonable ask, and Youssef makes a compelling case that basic investigation changes everything. “A simple investigation could reveal who these people are and how they got into the property,” he said — identify the occupants, verify the documents, interview the neighbors, run the backgrounds.
In other words, treat it like the crime it is. That Los Angeles requires a dedicated task force to be persuaded to do ordinary police work tells you how deep the institutional rot runs.
But a task force treats the symptom. The disease is a legal philosophy that has decided possession, however obtained, generates rights, while ownership, however lawful, generates only obligations. A government that cannot secure a citizen’s home against people who broke into it has failed at the most elementary purpose for which governments are instituted.
Everything else the state of California does, every program and initiative and commission, is decoration on a foundation it refuses to defend.
The prophet Micah described exactly this spirit among the powerful of his own day, and pronounced judgment on it.
And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage. (Micah 2:2)
The men Micah condemned at least had the honesty to take houses by open violence. California’s professional squatters take them with forged leases and procedural motions, and the state hands them the paperwork.
Until Sacramento passes something with the teeth of SB 448 and Los Angeles starts investigating hijacked homes as crimes rather than filing them as disputes, every vacant house in the county remains an invitation, and every homeowner a hostage negotiation waiting to happen.
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All of Liz’s posts are AI junk. Or vile Pallywood lies.
Part of the refuse that has washed up on the shores of FR since Jim’s illness and passing.
...the state calls it a landlord-tenant dispute [???] and tells the victim to hire a lawyer.
Democratic vote-winning Los Angeles squatter problems (imo) are arguably an eminent domain issue which is protected to an extent by Bill of Rights applied to the states by the 14th Amendment.
In fact, here is the 14A-based federal catch-all law that is supposed to discourage state actors from abridging constitutional protections.
14th Amendment, Section 1: All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States [emphasis added]; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
18U.S. Code § 242 - Deprivation of rights under color of law: Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom[all emphases added], willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death. —18 U.S. Code § 242 - Deprivation of rights under color of law
So why is Trump DOJ seemingly allowing Los Angeles property-owning citizens to be oppressed by Constitution-ignoring state and local governments?
Did they find a business card that said “Squatters-B-Gone’ and the web-site on it?
It would be nice if she would just post her opinions, as it is, it is like a machine produced promotion of a basic and repetitive agenda product.
“She” probably works in India or China and just posts whatever the assigned agenda of the day is over-and-over.
Her only consistent position is to disrupt and divide, and, other than vicious Jew-hatred, is never the same from day-to-day.
Pretended to be a moderator here a few months ago, making threats that “she” had the ability to ban people.
“Why don’t police listen to the home owner and evict them, instead of requiring home owners to defend their property with lethal force?”
Because of the law.
That’s just it, the squatters are using the 14th amendment to their advantage. Due Process takes time and as we all know the wheels of justice turn slowly. They are using their ‘due process’ to extend their stay in their Holiday Inn Express............
There are already professional anti-squatter businesses.
The first thing they do is make a rental agreement with the owner, then they move in *with* the squatters and make life Hell for them. They figure out their timetable, then bust it up. They play loud music during their sleep hours. They cook odoriferous food in the kitchen. They hog the bathroom. etc.
Too slow.......😉
This is not a dating site, stop posting selfies.
Due Process takes time and as we all know the wheels of justice turn slowly.
While the mile-high pile of activist judge (weaponized?) court precedents and related material that need to be reviewed in the name of equal rights is a problem imo, consider that elite desperate Democrats dragging otherwise easily resolvable constitutional issues though the court system is arguably an abridgment of 6th Amendment-protected right to a speedy trial.
6th Amendment: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy [emphasis added] and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
3. The Constitution was written to be understood by the voters [all emphases added]; its words and phrases were used in their normal and ordinary as distinguished from technical meaning; where the intention is clear, there is no room for construction [spin] and no excuse for interpolation or addition. —United States v. Sprague, 1931.
Lawyers routinely advise clients to waive their right to a speedy trial because exercising this right is often a risky strategy that can lead to a less favorable outcome.
And less billable hours..........😁
How is squatting different from breaking and entering?
They have fake documents that show they leased the property, so the cops have to treat it as a civil matter for the courts to decide.......................
This is a wonderful piece of journalism. What a terrible situation for owners. California—Mecca of freedom in the gold rush, for the surfer community and for all free thinkers in the 1960s and 70s, home of world-changing communications via Silicon Valley—it has turned into a parody of itself.
But before you shoot one, make sure you wear gloves and have a clean, untraceable extra gun to place in the intruder's hand.
Skunk semen on boards. Later, remove and loan to city hall. Clears vermin.
These people are not squatters as defined in law. They are criminal trespassers. The problem is that once they claim to be tenants the law requires eviction proceedings must be followed. There does not have to be any proof of payment. It pretty much is a matter of “he said, she said”. Add that presumption to how easy it is to file false papers with the court property owners are really screwed.
The laws need to change to when there is a dispute over whether the trespasser is a tenant a hearing be granted within 3 days with the burden of proof being on the trespasser, not the owner to show they had permission to occupy the dwelling. If such proof is not given they must vacate immediately and a LEO will go with them to make sure they do so. They also have to put up a bond with the court to cover any damages. Since they probably did not pay any sort of security deposit. This is separate from court fines and any jail time.
Police don’t do evictions without a court order.
These are the California laws regarding adverse possession AKA squatting. All four of the requirements must be met.
“In California, there are four requirements to make an adverse possession claim.
Hostile possession: the squatter truly believes that they are the rightful owner; they are occupying the land without knowledge of who owns it; or they are aware that they are trespassing. Typically this means that the squatter moves into the property with no concern to who owns it because they believe they are taking ownership.
Actual possession: They live on the land as if it is their own and pay associated bills and property taxes. This is in opposition to someone that would occasionally stop by the property or only use it for other, infrequent purposes.
Open and notorious possession: Their occupancy must be apparent that they are living there; cannot be hidden. They are not sneaking around the property; they own it and can be observed by neighbors.
Exclusive and continuous possession: Their possession cannot be interrupted or shared with other parties. This time period must be 5 years in California. If they were previously a tenant in the property, the 5 years begins once the tenancy ends.”
“According to adverse possession laws in California, a squatter must openly occupy a property and pay property taxes for a consecutive and uninterrupted period of five years.”
more details can be read here, https://www.goodlifemgmt.com/blog/squatters-rights-in-california/
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