I was fortunate some years ago when we had a squatter in a rental property we owned. He had, with his mother’s help, moved in on his sister, to whom we were renting the house. After some time, she was unhappy with the situation and tried to get him to move out; unsuccessfully. She finally just moved out, but he stayed, and he was not even trying to pick up the rent.
We went and confronted him and warned him we’d have him forcefully evicted. He claimed he was a “veteran” and as a veteran he “had his rights”. We told him nothing gave him the right to occupy our property - which he as making a shambles of.
Fortunately we had friends in both the local police department and the local sherriffs office. They agreed to help us, unofficially.
Together with out law enforcement friends in tow we returned to the prpoerty the next day. They started writing up citations for many illegal things he was doing on the property - essentially running a junk car and motorcycle repair operation on a residential property (according to neighbors, till all hours of the nite). Our law enforcement friends threatened to arrest him for his illegal operations if he was not gone in 24 hours. (He was not smart enough to know they first had to take him to court). We figured the threats by our law enforcement friends would be enough0
Sometime in the following 24 hours he left. And left us such a mess in and outside the house it took three junkyard tow trucks, some flatbed tow trunks and three multi-ton dumpsters to clear all his junk out - and that’s not considering the repairs we had to do inside the house.
However, with our law enforcement friends help we avoided lenghthy court processes to get the guy out.
Unfortunately in some states, like New York, squAtters get the presumption of innocent, no matter what, and until you go through the long court process to prove your claim, they get to occupy your property without any hinderance from you.
It should be the reverse, that a squatter should gave to prove they have a valid lease from the valid owner, or else.
Not really throwing rocks at you personally; you and your friends got stuff done. Good for you.
But ...
This is a form of corruption.
The "connected" people get justice ... or some reasonable facsimile thereof.
Everybody else gets the shaft.
Be thankful he wasn’t smart enough to get an attorney, because he probably had a “right” to sue.