How Squatting Works

Have you, uh, you know much about homelessness there, Chuck? Not really? Have you ever heard that, um, homelessness really began to take steam in America? Uh in the sixties, seventies and eighties when states started just shutting down mental institution. I have heard that. Actually, and this this part is unsubstantiated, but I I since I say it's a rumor, I'm going to just continue it anyway. How about that? It sounds good? Um. Apparently in New York there was series

of shutdowns in the eighties. Ronald Reagan's often blamed for this, although he didn't have any necessarily direct hand and shutting down mental institutions. Not like you're insane, you're out on the street. But it was under his administration that a lot of them uh went under basically and you know, you have all these um mentally infirmed people, uh and

now they have nowhere to live. So apparently in the state of New York, they gave him a bus ticket like fifty bucks and sent him to New York City. And the homeless population has just shot through the roofs since the sixties, right, there was homelessness before the Great Depression was a big time for homelessness and hoboism, which is a word I just made up, um, But it really really picked up in the sixties, seventies and eighties, and and now we have the homeless problem that we

have today. Um. And it's this is not to say that you know, if you're a homeless person, you're you're mentally unstable. It's that's not necessarily a case. But the cut, the the closing down of state institutions and the company the country really had that effect, right right, that's sad. And I do know that you know a lot of homeless people are suffering from various forms of mental illness. Self that that kind of makes sense. But they're also

expanding the definition of homeless um. Homelessness before UH usually just encompass somebody who had no home or was staying in a shelter um, and they expanded it to include people who are living in like weekly motels, uh, staying on other people's couches. Apparently that just shot the numbers through the roof. Wow. Yeah, sure so. Apparently in two thousand seven UM, the estimated number by the National Alliance to and Homelessness for homeless people on the streets was

about six hundred seventy one thousand and change, almost six people. Right, so that doesn't include the college dude crashing on his buddy's couch during the fish tour. And actually, that's a pretty funny that you say that, because I used to have a friend named Hippie Rob who was staying at my house for a really long time and he would not leave right. You know, I liked him a lot, he was a good friend, but man, he really knew

how to move right, and he was staying on my couch. Finally, one day I took Hippie Rob to Kmart and said, here's twenty bucks by a good tent, right, And he bought a tent and I put him in the car with his tent and drove into the woods. It was like it was a lot like that scene for Mai where the mom drops off young David the robot um and uh, it was less sad though. Wow, that's an incredible story. That is a true story. He was just

he was squatting in your own house. He was. Actually, it's funny that you mentioned squatting since this the the title of his podcast, right like that. So my homeless segue was really intended to serve as a Jessie juxtaposition between um, the number of people homeless on the streets, which is about with the number of vacant housing units in the US that same year, which was sixteen point

seven million. Interesting, So basically, what we're what we have in this country is a homeless problem with a clear solution. There's vacant houses, and yet people around the street still, Um, so why don't we just move them in to vacant houses? Right? It would be a little tricky, I guess, but it seems possible. Actually, there are people who are doing it

right now. Yeah, there's this a group called take Back the Land out of Miami um, and they have been staging uh, basically homeless move ins into vacant housing down there. This new housing or stuff that's been abandoned. I think it's both a bank owned foreclosed stuff that's been on the market forever. Um in Miami apparently just got reamed by the subprime mortgage fallout, and there's plenty of houses to go around, so these people are just moving them

in there. Um. Same with home not Jails, who are basically their their mission is to stop the the court system from just jailing homeless people. UM. So they're in they're they're the San Francisco Tenants Union. Uh. There's a lot of people out there who are saying, there's an empty house right there. This person is homeless. Whether it's because they are insane or they're down on their luck doesn't matter. Basically, it's the distinction between whether or not

housing is a basic human right. Sure, you know is it Isn't it under capitalism? No, it's not. If you don't have the money, you're on the street, whether this is vacant or not. Right, So, okay, we're talking about squatting Chuck, Let's let's go. Let's give a little background on squatting. Okay, are you going to give a little background on squatting? Well, uh, sure, Josh. Can you define squat Yes, it's when you actually live in a place or on a parcel of land that's unused or not yours. Yeah,

not not yours and not us. Yeah, we should make the distinction because if you move into a house with a family already living there, you've just committed home invasion and you're you're in big trouble. Right. So it's an empty house, it's not yours or or a piece of land, and you've moved in or camped out on it and

stayed there, right, And that means you're squatting. That is squatting right there, um, which would probably be the end of the story, right, because if you own that land or you own that house and you have a squatter, you would think all you would have to do is go in, pull a gun on them and run them off, right, or more peacefully asked them to leave. Yeah. Usually I think somebody who leaves, if you asked them to was just crashing it at that place. A squatters one who

just says no, right, I'm not moving. Well, you would think it'd be that cut and dry, but it's actually not, um that cut and dry, because squatters can actually are protected in certain ways. Yeah. There there's this thing called well, there's property rights, the right of a landowner, a homeowner. Right. Um, there's also tenants rights. Uh where if you rent like I do. Um, I can't. I can't just be kicked out of my house because the landlord got sick of me.

There's a least, there's a there's a contractual obligation, there's laws that guide that along. The thing is is in I think every state, these same rights are extended to squatters, and a tenant right actually kicks in in Georgia after three days. Yeah. So if you have an annoying house guest over for a long weekend, at the end of the three days, if they don't feel like moving, you've got a problem on your hands. Yeah, that's why I refused to have any house guests for longer than two days.

That's just a good policy, it's a good rule of thumb. You're out. So um, all right, we've got property rights, we have tenants rights, and basically, as an tention of the tenants rights. Um, there's also this thing called adverse possession, which is the ultimate nightmare of somebody who has a squatter. Right. We heard a little bit back from fans about when we did our Grilla Gardening podcast about someone beautifying, um, like a strip of public land. Potentially that could lead

to adverse possession. So that's a reason that someone might not want that. Yeah, Well, I think the the technical definition of adverse possession is, uh, living openly, continuously and hostily. And hostily isn't like you're chasing, you know, little kids around your yard with the stick. It's you're you're not moving if they ask you to. Well yeah, and it means you don't permission, right um. They you have to live there for a set period, right right Um, And

that's usually state by state. In California, if you can do that for five years, um, you own the property. In West Virginia it's ten. In Texas it's thirty. But I think every state again has a rule of ever's possession. So basically, if you live there, if you are especially if you're keeping the place up that kind of thing, and people know you're living there, Uh, once that that time period comes up, you can go pay the property taxes and that's yours. Right. That's the key though, I think,

is the property taxes. I think that makes it official. I imagine that that almost never happens, that ever ever's possession takes place, right you think, Well, I mean in this day and age, with this many people crawling on the planet, you know, land, land is it's important, it's expensive. Right, Well, I'm gunning for it. Is this time? Is it time for my squatting story? Yeah? Please, I'm a squatter, Josh, oh, yeah, that's right. And when you're talking about yeah, are you

sure you want to talk about this? Chuck? Yeah, because no, this is no one knows where I live. Um, My house that I bought has a has a little strip of land behind it, very small strip of land about a hundred feet by forty ft I would say, And the previous owner of the home had that um sectioned off for some reason, and it's technically separate from my property. We never heard from the sky and we moved in and that's half of that strip of land is most

of my backyard. So Emily and I decided that, you know, we're just gonna put our fence up, put our privacy, fence up, plant grass and you know, claim possession of this land if we never hear from this guy. We checked with the county and there were years of back taxes owed on it. Then he clearly abandoned he thought, I guess he thought he could build something on it,

but there there's not enough room. You have to have variances, be a certain amount from the curb and all that to build something, so you couldn't build anything on it and basically just kind of dumped it. Um. So we have claimed it as our own and we've been in the house for I think three years now. Have you been living hostily? We haven't been living very hostile. What's the what's the time limit in Georgia? You know, I'm not I'm not positive. I believe it's seven years, but

we need to look that up for sure. And we've also been in touch with the county about the back taxes. Still haven't been paid and when it comes to time, we're gonna pay the taxes and claiming his around. Nice. Nice, Keep keep living the dream, Chuck, Keep fighting the good fight, right, keep squatting and uh well, there in addition to living continuously openly and hostily. Right. Um, there's actually some steps that a squatter can take to basically lay claim on

a place, right. Um, if you're keeping if you're keeping a place up, if you clean it up, maybe plant some shrubs something like that. Yeah, plant, Um, you're you're you're saying you're laying claim on the place, and you're also you're also showing that it's actually going to it's doing better in your possession, whether you really own it

or not, which goes a long way to um. But let's say you move into a place, you throw up some curtains, plant a couple of bushes, Maybe you borrow a lawnmower from a friend with a house and you cut the lawn something like that, and um, you you you've set up house. Right, one of the first things

you can expect is a visit from the cops. Because if you if you live in a neighborhood and the house has been empty and all of a sudden there's somebody living in it, especially somebody who drives their shirts on a clothesline out front, Um, they're they're going to take notice and they're going to call the cops on you. But there's not a lot of cops can do though, No, there's not. UM. This is if you can prove tenant rights that you are staying there, whether you're supposed to

be or not. Right. UM. One good way to do this is to go to the utility company and ask to have the power turned on and start paying a power bill there, which you can gain. Yeah. Yeah, you don't have to prove ownership. I never have had to. UM. You just go and set up a an account, start paying, and then you have bills that are coming in your name to that address. If the cops show up to your house, you get to show them this and they say,

good enough for me. And what you've just done is shifted the burden of proof that you're not supposed to be there from you the squatter, to the landlord. And it's a huge headache for landland right and becomes a civil matter. It is a civil matter. The cops are

immediately taken out of the the equation. Indeed, I have to tell you, UM, when I first researched this article, I was very much gung ho like squatters rights, let's, you know, put the homeless in homes and and I get that, Like I still feel that, UM, But I I was kind of brought down to earth a little bit when I interviewed our CEO, Mike Castcon, who actually

had a long, harrowing story with a squatter. Um, he had like a rental place, right and um, he had a tenant that had a lease and the lease came up and the tenant moved out, but the tenant and had a friend staying there, and the friend didn't move out, and she said, I'm not moving, sorry, budd. And so Castcon says that when you you think all the things that you can do to get rid of somebody who's a squatter, you you can't do like you can't turn

off the power, you can't turn off the water. Um, you basically have to make sure that they're comfortable and safe and get found your place. Yeah you can get big, I'm fine. Um. And he also said he spent you know, several thousand dollars in court fees and and um, you know, things like having subpoenas delivered that kind of stuff. Uh, and missed work getting this person out of his place, and good luck getting you know, a refund on anything like that, right or getting right Yeah, Yeah, no, I

don't think she had much money. Um. Yeah, So that was that kind of changed my my attitude a little bit at the very least. Now I start to see it from both sides, you know, because there's there's a victim in it, even though when you're talking about putting the homeless and housing it's kind of tough to see it that way, but but there definitely is. So what do you do, well, how to get a squatter out? Tell me, well, I think there are legal avenues that

you need to go through. Uh, if you're a landlord, which does not include, like we said, turning off the water and power, because you can get in trouble for that. If you're a landlord, you can basically you need to call an attorney. If you have a squatter, don't make a move, just say I'd like you to get out. They say no, You say to be continued and go get a lawyer. But there the the landlord that's tough. You know that. You usually if you're an individual landlord,

you don't have you know, vast resources. So the the great enemy of the common squatter is gentrification urban renewal, because all of a sudden you have developers in the equation, and developers tend to have much deeper pockets and possibly fewer scruples than the individual landlord. There's actually a squat um a house that was being squatted in, uh down the street from me a couple of years back. Yeah, it was bad um and one day it wasn't there anymore.

It down just tore it down. Interesting the developer did, yeah yeah, and wait, waited till the person was out of the house, or just showed up with the I don't know. Um, I've seen a couple of people who were squatting in the house walking around since then. So I guess you gave him a chance to get out. But the house isn't there anymore, which is really on a cynical a little sour, I should say, because now

it's just an empty piece of land. Yeah yeah, but I guess he really didn't want people staying in his house, so he sent the wrecking ball through, right, And and so urban renewal in general, in general, once you have the presence of developers, but not just developers, um, you know, and upwardly mobile people who really don't want squatters hanging

around and bringing part property values back down right right. Um, So if you're if you're a squatter, you're in trouble once once a place gets tapped for you know, gentrification, right. And I would guess, and this is a generalization, but that most people that move in squat into a place it's abandoned probably don't do massive improvements. And you know, it's it's probably not that kind of situation. No, I can tell you the squat down the street for me

was was not the case. Yeah. Yeah, So, but I am in a in an area that's being gentrified as we speak, right. Um. And apparently Geneva, Switzerland, went through a similar thing in the nineties. There was a group called Rhino and they were basically political activist squatters and at its peak this group held a hundred and fifty

apartment buildings apartment buildings, not apartment units in the city. Um, and all of a sudden there's this urban renewal movement that comes through Geneva, and by two thousand seven they had like twenty seven, which is still a substantial amount of apartment buildings, but compared to a hundred and fifty. You can see, once once an areas targeted like this, then then there's nothing you can do. Have to move out to the sticks. They've also done this in London,

in Denmark, just to name a couple. Yeah, yeah, now there is a there is Squatting can be good to some extent that Okay. So there's this Peruvian economist. His name is here Nando de Soto. Very nice, thank you, UM, and he created a what he called a roadmap to wealth and it was specifically designed for UM post Soviet former satellite countries that we're making the transition from communism

to the free market. UM. And one of the one of the UM facets of this, one of the major parts of it was that squatters on rural land, the rural poor who were just like living on land and Shanny's and that kind of thing, their land, the land that they were squatting on should be UM parceled up and they should go register it and then by being landowners, they would have credit available to them, which should considerably

get the economy going right. Interesting thing. It's unproven, but it's actually being tried UH in a country called the Prettiness Strovi, which is UM an unrecognized nation that used to formally be part of Moldovia. Interesting. UM, So we'll see if it happens, right, see if they get their seat at the u N. Yeah. Yeah, well we'll see. Only time will tell, and if they do, you can bet that it's going to be because of Hernando de Soto and they'll probably put them on some sort of

currency probably or statue at least. So that's that's squatting, right, squatting. I will continue to squad and maybe in a few years if we're still doing this podcast, and then I'll let everyone know how it went. Yeah. I'm really curious to see how this goes. And I hope you didn't just out yourself. I don't think so. I would kick so. Um, you got anything else you want? You want to get something off your chest? Maybe maybe a little listener mail.

All right, let's hear Josh, this comes to us. And I'm not gonna read this person's name because it's slightly sensitive. We'll just say that the name starts with the G. And G wrote us about the Delta Force podcast. And here's what I remember that one. Yeah, here's what G had to say. Uh, the podcast reminded me of a friend I used to have a work when Ronald Reagan started doing his war drugs. My friend, let's call him John, was removed from the military and sent on these black ops,

black operations. Uh, an amount of money would be left in a safe deposit box in the in the mark's area, and the mark was so when he had to kill. Uh with a photo of the mark and some other information. Uh, the mark is was usually a drug lord or a higher up deem to big of a threat. So John and his partner would use the money to buy local guns and supplies, then head out and snipe with the PERSONA. Yeah, Waxham and this is you know this guy would tell

these stories in the break round. Evidently, Uh. He said it wasn't a one day operation. They had to set up camp tonight before and set up land mines around their camp, so anyone coming in would get tripped up by the land mine coming and trying to kill them. And he says on countless occasions he would hear an explosion, thinking assassin was coming to kill him, only to find a shredded cow had happened upon the land mine. And so because are always the innocent by standards and anything.

So this is an amazing story. And I don't know if it's true, but I don't see no reason why this person went right in and make all this up, so it sounds pretty good to me. Yeah, well, thanks a lot. Gee, that story is absolutely nuts. And uh. If you have an amazing or harrowing tale of cow's being blown up, or people being greased, or you just want to say hi, you can send an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff

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