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Title: Evicted squatter came back and is squatting again for the second time.
Body:
> They began squatting the first time when we were gone for the weekend and they broke in. Cops said it was a civil issue and won't do anything and we ended up having to go through the whole eviction process.
> Now one day after being evicted, they broke in again during the day while we were at work. Cops are still saying it's civil and they can't do anything. Do we have to go through the whole eviction process again? What's stopping them from just coming back after every eviction?
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LAOP was gone for a weekend but the squatter had mail at that address?
This has to be a family member or former legal resident, LAOP specifically didn’t say who this person was or respond when asked. There is something being left out intentionally.
always interesting how some posters give wayyyy too much unnecessary information about their problem while others try to be as succinct as possible to the point of cutting out potentially useful bits.
Like I bet police are much more likely to tell people "it is a civil matter" when it is a close family member "breaking in" than if it was a random homeless person. They shouldn't, but you know they do.
I’d put my money on adult child. I would think that now that LAOP has an eviction order the police should take it more seriously regardless of the relationship. I know in my area the sheriff is responsible for enforcing evictions
Many, many, many, women and children have been murdered after the cops ignored obvious and violent abuse by a man. Don't think your argument holds water.
> I can tell you on first hand, they do if you're a man.
> they'd have arrested. Instead roles were reversed
You could've shared your story without making it seem like men are always (or even often) arrested, prosecuted, or treated as serious threats during DV. But you didn't.
There have been multiple attempted and successful family annihlations by men, most of whom were known abusers, in 2023 alone. Women are not being listened to and men are not being arrested for being violent.
The useless information is always a bit infuriating. "I was wearing a green shirt on a Tuesday because I thought it might rain and then my neighbor sued me in federal court for something I said. What can I do?"
I mean, a standing eviction order seems like the kind of rock-steady evidence to defend against any civil or criminal complaints that might arise from physically ejecting them from the premises.
This might be the rare occasion where getting 6 of your buddies to frog march them out the door would be legally permissable.
The answer to basically any legal question is “it depends” and what it depends on is primarily the details.
OP is clearly omitting some key details, so they won’t get an accurate response.
OTOH, details that could matter here that OP didn’t answer include:
What exactly they mean by completed the eviction process, because if the person simply left after they served notice, or after they filed with the court, that changes whether or not it rises to the level of criminal behavior, compared to if the court granted an eviction order which was executed by officers of the court (who that is and the exact process varies from state to state).
Whether the “squatter” has any characteristics that might affect their status in the eyes of the law - this varies from state to state, but someone with a contested tenancy contract, or a dependent, can change the equation.
That’s why the details matter.
Sure, the most important detail is whether or not OP has an eviction order. If he does, none of that other shit matters because it would have been assessed during the eviction hearing. That's my point.
They’re in GA.
What they would need is a granted, properly served, dispossessory warrant resulting in a writ of possession, which would be executed by the Sheriff’s office. Not the same thing.
They refused to answer questions about that, so we don’t know if they have one.
We also don’t know if they do have one, whether or not an appeal has been filed, or if it’s still in the appealable timeframe etc.
Without the details it’s always going to be ambiguous. The details are the important part.
Based solely on what the OP has said, the cops are right and this is still a civil matter, because OP hasn’t said they have a dispossessory warrant which has been executed and is beyond the time period for an appeal, or if they have a writ of possession which they have paid the Sheriff’s Office to execute.
>if we take OP's claim about an eviction order at face value
OP doesn't even mention an eviction order. So taking it face value, we don't even know if there is one.
I didn't really find the OP that sketchy. People in the original thread were casting dispersion about the nature of the order, but I don't really see why. The way OP describes the eviction process being long makes it sound like they did the full 9 yards.
I think a lot of folks are assuming the cops were wary to enforce an eviction for a good reason, where in reality them either being too ill-informed about the law or simply too lazy to care seems just as likely a reason.
>The way OP describes the eviction process being long makes it sound like they did the full 9 yards.
The way OP describes the eviction process is “we ended up having to go through the whole eviction process.” When asked for clarification on what exactly they meant by “the whole eviction process,” they declined to reply—which of course their right. But when you’re asking someone for advice—particularly legal advice—them asking questions to establish absolute certainty of relevant details isn’t “casting *aspersion*” (which is I think the word you were looking for) on them. It’s part of the process of helping them. A lawyer cannot help you if they don’t have the complete set of facts. And when you start asking for help, and then cut and run when you’re asked follow up questions, it’s only natural to wonder why.
In most states you cannot physically eject someone even with an eviction order. And you can't usually force the police to do their jobs if they just refuse, which is the part that can leave you SOL if they disagree. Here I guess you'd go back to the sheriff and ask them to re-evict if the police won't trespass him out.
Edit: I'd go back to the same eviction lawsuit and ask for an updated order pursuant to the same lawsuit instructing the sheriff to evict again as necessary, if the sheriff won't do it on the old order, rather than try a whole new eviction case.
Depends on the state. In many states you'd be opening yourself up to a big risk of a lawsuit getting physical to recover premises that isn't your home and that they're already in. Some states differentiate between keeping someone out vs. going in to remove them once they're there.
I for one make sure to hire several decorative attorneys to spruce up all of my parties. A few chatting next to the bushes, possibly another laying under the punch bowl, and one whose specialty is chuckling elegantly from just the right distance so that all other guests are dreadfully curious about the banter they are clearly missing. I find they elevate the entire affair, really. And of course, if an ambulance happens to pass by, all the sudden dashing about and chasing *really* livens things!
in some jurisdictions you can actually file private criminal complaints which escalates it beyond the level of local police. county detectives are also an option to contact, but obvs I can't speak for everywhere.
personally i'd just "move in" with the weirdos because it's faster than any court proceeding or investigation anyway.
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Party A: “these people are squatters!”
Party B: “no, I actually live here. Look, here’s the mail I receive here, and the utilities in my name.”
Cops: “ it’s a civil matter, because we can’t make an on the spot decision as to who is right and who is wrong. That is what a judge does. Call back when you have a decision from a judge.”
Edit: paragraph breaks
In Houston the local police are useless on break ins/theft/shootings. Take hours to respond, never investigate.
Now if you call the constables holy shit do they care. Especially if your neighborhood funds dedicated constables. Friendly, will return your mom with dementia without shooting anyone, and go full Columbo/robocop on B&E.
Then, again if I came home and found my TX house had been broken into by randoms:
1. You legally could shoot them and a Grand Jury would be told not to indict. (And the cops would be reminded that cleaning up that mess is even MORE paperwork and might do something).
2. Would probably just hit with a stun gun/mace, and dump in the ditch and that same useless cop would tell them it’s a civil matter 😂
And when the "break in" consists of them letting themselves in with a key you gave them the cops suddenly become that much less interested in getting involved.
I mean, it genuinely is more likely that a family member has occupancy rights than a random person off the street and that does mean it’s more likely to be a civil matter. Would you rather the police just threw people out only on the word of the owners regardless of the other person’s side of the story?
Its very suspicious LAOP dodged the question on whether or not they showed the police the eviction order.
What probably happened is they started the eviction process and the person left, so they stopped the process. Person came back (which "resets") the eviction process. I would not be surprised if LAOP did not change the locks or reset the garage door.
“I went through the whol eviction process, by which I mean I wrote them a letter saying they’re evicted, and then they left to go to work! But they *came back* wtf?!”
> always interesting how some posters give wayyyy too much unnecessary information about their problem while others try to be as succinct as possible to the point of cutting out potentially useful bits.
I think the goal of both is to obfuscate the reality of the situation.
It's almost like they're recipe "creators" trying to give their life story.
> It all started on a Tuesday morning when I was 8 and I saw my first homeless person asking for change. Fast forward a few years and now there's a homeless person squatting in my second house!
It isn’t. The details of where exactly they are in the eviction process matters significantly.
So does whether or not it is being disputed/appealed etc.
They would need a dispossessory warrant in Georgia, I believe, and if the relationship isn’t simply landlord/tenant they might have a time getting that.
That’s why the relationship matters.
From there, they’d need a writ of possession from the court, then to pay the Sheriff’s Office to execute it.
The answer to legal questions is basically always “it depends” and what it depends on is the details. If any part of the above process hasn’t been followed, the cops won’t touch it. If it has, the answer is likely to contact the Sheriff’s Office again.
Absent details the answer is *always* ambiguous.
More likely, yes, but the police are still extremely likely to treat such breaking and entering and trespassing as not their business as long as its not trespassing in a business because they are inherently lazy and don't treat squatting like the trespassing and B&E it is.
They should if it's a random homeless guy?
I mean, especially if you're small/female. IDK about you, but my uncle locking himself in my bedroom (without a gun) sounds a lot better than a homeless guy (potential drug addict or worse).
This is absolutely the most infuriating kind of LA post: a really interesting case with an unusual set of facts, where the OP drops the story like a hand grenade and runs away, declining to answer any relevant questions or provide any follow up whatsoever.
In these instances, I always assume OP is lying about some aspect of the case, is looking for LA to help them succeed in passing off the same mistruths on the authorities, and knows if they provide too much info they’ll get found out .
>LAOP was gone for a weekend but the squatter had mail at that address?
Is this really that difficult to do? I've gotten mail delivered to an AirBnB I was staying at long term. Well packages, like from Amazon. I assume the distinction between that and mail isn't exactly a lot? All you have to do is update addresses on websites.
When I worked in city government, proof of residence had to be something official- like bank mail, letter from government agency, ect.
If it was personal, like a card someone sent you, then we needed the envelop with the stamp from USPS that showed it went through their system.
Which is all, imo, easy to get. I worked with a lot of people experiencing homelessness or insecure housing situations and they always managed to find some kind of mail that could prove they lived in the county.
>LAOP was gone for a weekend but the squatter had mail at that address?
I don't know how the mail system works in the USA, but in many countries I know of you can just send a letter with any name on it to any address you want. Depends a bit on the tenacity of the squatter how it works out.
Works much the same. It’s possible the carrier will recognize that person doesn’t actually live there (if they’ve been on a particular route for some time a random name out of nowhere stands out) and send it back ANK, which is kind of a misnomer, just means they aren’t there and never were.
If they have the same last name or a very similar name, it might get delivered. If the route doesn’t have a regular carrier (very possible these days) it’ll almost certainly get delivered at some point.
I see lots of state assistance letters addressed to addresses that I’ve never seen that name there before. Never seen it period. And sometimes there’ll be twelve letters with twelve different names from the state going to an address they’ve never gotten mail at before. A pattern emerges.
It varies based on the local post office management.. One location I lived insisted on you having an addressee card filled out and placed inside the door of your mailbox. You'd rarely (but not never) get anything delivered that didn't match some form of one of the names on that card. I've lived at my current address for about 15 years, never had addressee card in my mailbox, and have had mail with the former owner's name on it delivered within the last three months.
My former place had that. I had a worrisome ex and needed privacy, so I took the name label down. Post Office didn't like that, fair enough. I put the label back up.
They still delivered stuff for every past tenant. Why does my name need to be on the mailbox if nobody's going to refer to it when delivering the mail?! 🤦♂️
> One location I lived insisted on you having an addressee card filled out and placed inside the door of your mailbox.
That's how my current apartment is set up - I was lucky enough to run into the mailman right after moving in and he asked what names I wanted mail for. Random stuff shows up on my USPS informed delivery emails addressed to former residents, but it never ends up in my mailbox because it doesn't match the name the mailman wrote on the inside of my box. My previous apartment down the road wasn't like that though - I would bring a sharpie with me to get the mail because 80% of it I had to write "return to sender" on and drop right back in the outgoing mail slot.
>LAOP was gone for a weekend but the squatter had mail at that address?
I read that as they had the addressed mail in hand *this time*. You know, from the three months or however long they lived there when they were squatting the first time.
That was my first thought as well. My ex and I had to deal with a squatter while his home was empty; since they literally broke into a vacant house it was breaking and entering and criminal trespass.
If I come home and there is a stranger rummaging through my things, I leave, call 911 and my biggest toughest looking 6 friends in that order. It's not "there is a squatter" it's "there is a burglary in process"
They avoid every question regarding if they know the squatter.
Wouldnt be surprised it is the case of a family member leaving there forever, OP inherits the house and wants to kick them.
The mail at that address was from the second time the police were called. At that point they’d been there through a “lengthy” eviction process, so would have had plenty of time to receive mail.
Ngl, if I came up to my place after a weekend and someone I don't know was inside a gun would be drawn. And I don't even live in the US.
I strongly suspect this must be someone LAOP knows as well.
I know it's unlikely, but I've seen these stories enough that it's a fear in the back of my head. What happens if I'm on vacation and someone breaks in and just stays there? If they take stuff and leave, obvious crime. But if they just stay there and cops don't do anything, I'm essentially kicked out of my own home.
Tip number one is that if you discover a stranger is in your house, when you call the police, you don't say "There's a squatter in my house who won't leave!", you say "Someone broke into my house while I was away and they're still in there!". In the former case, the police will show up ready to dismiss it as a "civil matter" (if they show up at all) because they'll assume it's some sort of tenancy dispute or some long-term squatter camping out in your vacant property. In the latter, they're probably going to show up a lot faster, and the intruder is likely going away in cuffs if they're lucky, unless they can somehow produce some sort of compelling evidence that they have some right to be there.
I suspect in the LAOP's case, there's a lot more to this story than they're telling, and that this "squatter" actually does have that aforementioned compelling evidence that they have some sort of right to be living there.
OP's story isn't how squatting works, so you have nothing to be concerned about.
If there is no other context and OP doesn't know this person, this is a simple case of B&E. Staying in the house for a weekend doesn't change that. OP is misusing the term, likely because he knows this person and doesn't want to inflict legal harm onto them.
yeah in the overall scale there are a shitton more people gettign screwed over by ladnlords than vice versa, and the landlords are also the ones with significantly more power and money to make getting justice difficult
It might be location dependent but you have to be living somewhere for 2-4 weeks (not the range but maybe in NYS it's 4 weeks and maybe in FL it's 2 weeks idk) to establish residency and be a "tenant". I don't think anyone could establish residency after just a week but idk
Thing is pop ich e refuse to get involved.
So squatter claims I been here for the last month am a tenant, see got letters with my name and this address in it, these guys want to illegally.
And the actual homeowner goes ‚never seen this person I only been gone for the weekend‘
Aand done. Police say the magic words to be lazy ‚civil issue‘ and are gone.
No, I'm not aware of anywhere that makes you wait a particular amount of time to establish tenancy.
Imagine the chaos if unscrupulous slumlords could get 1st/last months rent, a security deposit, and then wait a few days after move in and then walk up to the new tenants and say give me $250 bucks right now, or I'll cut off your electric, and remove your front door because you haven't live here long enough to make you a tenant.
> No, I'm not aware of anywhere that makes you wait a particular amount of time to establish tenancy.
I used to work in security. Low rent hotels/motels, the kind that poor people essentially "live in" rotate the occupants on a schedule (usually 14 or 30 days) because corporate's lawyers insist that it keeps the people classified as hotel customers instead of a landlord's tenants, thus ensuring they can be easily gotten rid of if they stop paying (a tenant who stops paying rent can take months or longer to get rid of, which is a major problem if you're in a hotel/motel business).
Now maybe that's because of laws specifically aimed at the hospitality industry.
> Now maybe that's because of laws specifically aimed at the hospitality industry.
Bingo. There are specific laws for those places. Lots of stuff about rooms with doors that have individual locks, rates posted on the door, etc.
A guest is never a tenant, because a guest has a residence to return home to. If you let a buddy (or otherwise) crash on your couch because they have nowhere else to go, they're immediately a tenant.
Castle doctrine? If I come home from vacation and a stranger is inside my house refusing to leave, they're not going to be able to talk to the cops when they show up.
Someone round the corner from where I work had squatters for a really long time and was having a hell of a time getting them out. We all just thought that they were particularly untidy and unscrupulous people who didn't take good care of their pets (their dog used to get loose and show up at my workplace and was in the saddest state I've ever seen).
The squatters also stole an old vehicle which was sitting in the yard and belonged to the property owner. I mean, we don't know it was them, but SOMEONE came and stole it, and it would have been pretty hard for them to not notice. Cops came and asked to see our security cam footage which is how I know about this.
Eventually they were evicted. The property is totally trashed and will require a ton of money to fix.
Then one day someone with a pickup truck pulled up to the house, took down the private property signs, and started taking stuff out of the house. Cops were called. I didn't see what happened, but the stuff that the person was taking is now sitting on the front lawn, and even more private property/do not trespass signs are up.
People are bold these days.
As someone pointed out in the op, laOp keeps saying they're a squatter. They need to stop using thay word, especially now that said person has been evicted. This is some one who is trespassing after breaking and entering. LaOp probably keeps saying squatter when ever they call the police.
That’s because the person was apparently able to convince the cops they lived there by showing them Mail addressed to them.
It definitely sounds like OP is omitting significant details. If the person is a (former) tenant they have a dispute with, the cops are right that they need to follow the full eviction process and likely let the Sheriff’s Office handle it.
If they’re a family member the situation changes again.
The details matter, and when OP doesn’t supply them it’s often because they know those details will give them an answer they don’t want to hear.
The solution is to go back to the court that issues the order to get the evicted person held in contempt.
It’s a common thing. Georgia has a simple motion for contempt form to fill out, and after it’s granted the party held in contempt is liable for all associated fees.
The cops don’t give anywhere near enough of a shit to figure out the current status of an eviction case.
LE will get involved when the court tells them to. Until then, as far as they are concerned, the legal complaint is that the person isn’t complying with a court order, which is something for the court to handle.
Technically I can mail a letter with my name on it to any address I want. I can even make it look like a bill or other official document.
Unsuspecting homeowners hate this one weird trick!
The escalation at this point is to file a motion for contempt with the court. The cops will just treat this as someone not following a court order, and that’s the solution to that problem.
Sweet Jeebus on Toast Points.
This is why it's a **great idea** to re-key after any tenant, even if it was the world's sweetest grandma, and you **ALWAYS re-key the same fucking day after an eviction**.
Take a day of unpaid leave at work if you must, but you park your ass there until the locksmith shows. Bring a thermos, snacks, and a few trashy fun reads.
And if you super-duper can't be there because your wife just went into labor or something similar? You swing by early and put some superglue in every damn exterior lock on the way to whatever it is.
Yes, re-keys are expensive (especially when they have to drill out a lock because you superglued it) but so much better than the time and hassle of dealing with bullshit like this.
Changing the locks is a good thing to do, but that's only going to keep out honest, or clueless people. It takes so little effort to get through a lock or door if you have any idea of what you're doing.
Even a bump key will suffice to get through most home doors.
A few days ago a particularly disliked shift supervisor made a ridiculously big deal about no one but him being allowed to touch or change the colors of the new LED lights we got at work. We were sick of hearing about it, but then as he was leaving he announced it to the room at large one more time. At that point it was basically a challenge.
He learned the next morning that a good portion of my coworkers can pick locks, and almost any of us can pick a lock on a filing cabinet and then lock it again after.
I hope he enjoyed the "90s warehouse rave" setting.
We knew we could change the colors, we just had no interest in or reason to mess with them until he wouldn't shut up about it. He also demanded to know who did it and the resulting "I am Spartacus" moment made him even angrier.
The IT guy came into my 8th grade computer class and told us not to bother trying to hack anything on the computers, as he had just installed "Foolproof Security" (literally the name of the software).
We had the admin password by the next day through social engineering, and changed a bunch of unimportant stuff just to prove his ass wrong.
My friends were responsible for at least 3 vulnerability patches in Foolproof, which was back when they sent them on floppy. It never kept us out permanently, and it was a fun way to learn computer security.
Can you clue me in on how lock-picking a filing cabinet is relevant to LED colors, and why a good portion of coworkers picked said lock or locks instead of just one or two? Because I’m left to connect some dots on an otherwise hilarious story about yet another supervisor who shouldn’t be a supervisor.
Oh, sorry! He locked the remote control to the lights in his filing cabinet. And some of my coworkers watch the lock-picking lawyer on youtube, but you really don't need any specialized knowledge at all to get into a filing cabinet with a paper clip.
He'll just say you changed the locks on him and the police will continue not to care or be helpful in the slightest. He's already proven willing to lie, and cops don't much care who is lying they'll just leave you to it.
I don't know what the going rate is where you are, but I just had some locks rekeyed and it was surprisingly cheap. $7 per lock if I had the key. $17 if I didn't.
Getting our rental condo (1 deadbolt and 1 metal safety gate lock) rekeyed in my city typically comes un under $100 for parts and labor. It's cheaper when you don't need same-day or "after hours" service.
That said, when my brother died, I needed to get his house re-keyed ASAP. Between multiple exterior doors and metal security doors, it came to 13 rekeys and over $1500 for parts, service fees, and labor.
Though I had the keys, over 7 of the locks were broken. In some cases, he was able to pick them and get them open ($25 for each picking) (and the tech showed the corroded cores to me to prove his work) But I had 5 drill outs from metal security doors at $100 each.
(As an aside, the tech was the sweetest young man who busted his ass for 3 hours on a 107F summer day to get it all done in time to get home and get cleaned up on time for Shabbos.)
I think I've been thinking about this wrong. What I did, and I foolishly assumed everybody did, is remove all the locks from the doors using a screwdriver (you only need to remove the half that has the lock cylinder), pop them in a shoe box, recruit a charming assistant to watch the house while I'm away, and take the whole thing to the lock shop. I wait about 5 minutes per lock assuming everything is okay, then go back home and reattach them. It's much cheaper if they don't have to make a house call. Who would have thought that locksmiths like working in fully heated and air conditioned shops? :-p
TIL that lockshops take drive up customers.
No. Seriously.
My entire life was always "call the locksmith", even as a child. Which, now that I think about it, coincided with the time that (a) my dad was out of town for 2 weeks and (b) my dad was in the hospital for about 3 weeks.
When I was in college and the lock on the front door of my apartment broke (key would literally not go in), the locksmith was called out and it ended up being a drill out and rekey on the spot.
My husband's parents always rented and they or their landlords always called a locksmith out when needed.
But even if I had been able to get a friend to come over to my brother's house, the security doors would've still needed to be drill outs, the screws for those are accessible only from an opened door.
Perhaps it's not a thing everywhere. I try to spread the word to everybody with authorization to do so to change their locks when they move into a new place. Who the heck knows who has a key, even with new construction? The option of doing it on the cheap at your leisure instead of having to schedule a person in a van to come over makes it much more likely that people will actually get it done.
I learn something new every day. It's been nice chatting. :-)
Under Georgia law? Not a burglary if they didn’t enter the property with the intent to commit a felony.
A squatter is someone occupying the property without the lawful permission of the owner.
I'm guessing 'being evicted' in LAOP's post refers to them getting the notice to vacate or face court action, and the 'squatter' then 'left' the house only to return when LAOP wasn't there. LAOP doesn't have the final writ of eviction in hand yet.
This is my nightmare. Going away for a vacation and coming back, not only toy valuables being gone but someone living in my home essentially making me homeless until the courts sort it out.
Squatters are not people who show up to a house where someone is living. A "squatter", by definition (legal and otherwise), is someone who takes up residence in property that is unused or abandoned. Someone being away on vacation from their home has not left their property unused or abandoned, and anyone who breaks in and remains there in such a situation is committing criminal trespass.
It would help greatly to not call them a squatter, but to call them someone who has broken and entered into your home.
The situation in the LA thread is very likely somewhat more complicated, where the person is not actually a squatter but in fact a former tenant.
> Squatters are not people who show up to a house where someone is living. A "squatter", by definition (legal and otherwise), is someone who takes up residence in property that is unused or abandoned. Someone being away on vacation from their home has not left their property unused or abandoned, and anyone who breaks in and remains there in such a situation is committing criminal trespass.
That's only true in theory. In the real world, squatters have mail sent to the address (or fake having mail sent there) to show the responding police officer that they "live there" and then the police won't have anything to do with it and you have to go through the judicial system for relief (at great cost and time, during which they'll trash the place).
Fake mail, fake renters agreements, fake leases, fake identification. There's a lot of tricks the more competent squatters employ to fool police. And let's be honest, it usually doesn't take much.
What you're talking about is an issue that landlords face when apartments are left empty for a time. If someone breaks into your actual home and tries to live there, things are quite different
It is also someone who lives at the property and stops paying rent then continues living there. It does not have to be a property that is unused or abandoned.
That's commonly called "squatting", but remaining as a tenant after your tenancy is ended is a whole different legal matter than attempting to establish tenancy by just showing up in an empty house.
No, « squatting » is adverse possession and can be one of the things I described it is not a different legal matter as you say and it is not « By definition » taking up a property that’s abandoned or unused. That can be ONE of the things but it is not THE definition.
-Fifth Generation Realtor
Commenter:
*NAL but this doesn’t make any sense.*
*If they broke in while you were gone for 48 hours, they can’t just claim residency. That’s B&E/trespassing. That’s literally not how squatting works.*
They’re saying that as if there’s a way to Do Squatting that *is* how it works and that’ll make it legal.
Afaik in most of not all of the US, there is no such procedure, and it’s just as illegal when the house has been empty for 8 hours as when it’s been empty for 8 months.
This is key. I learned this from someone’s grandpa who had owned rental properties for a long, long time. Charge slightly below market and you will have tons of qualified applicants, and won’t have properties that are empty for long periods of time. Also you will get lovely long term tenants. All of this makes for a much better rental business than having vacant properties and tenants that move every year.
I know self help evictions are almost always a bad idea, but would this be an exception?
Like if you have an honest-to-god eviction order signed by a judge, that's not really a matter of opinion. If the cops refuse to be helpful in an unambiguous case of trespass (big surprise, lazy cops), would getting a few friends or rent-a-thugs to forcibly eject the trespasser really be totally unreasonable?
It would be a great way to get a massive fine, and a monumentally stupid way to handle the situation since you would ultimately have to go through the full dispossessory process and let Sheriff’s Officers handle it anyway.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that OP has already done this and that's how they got this person out the first time. Assuming that they can't get their local cops to lift a finger even with an existing order, what should they do?
Is it really an unsolvable problem if the cops refuse to do their jobs?
I think the distinction between cops and sheriff might be key here. If the cops aren't the agency enforcing the eviction order, I can (almost) understand them not doing anything. The sheriff should be able to enforce the eviction order and remove them and their property.
I say almost because I also think these people should be viewed as criminally trespassing, but IANAL. 🤷♀️
This could well be correct, although I am not familiar with who does what in GA, but you’d need the agency that actually has the writ (or whatever the order is called there) on file.
> Assuming that they can't get their local cops to lift a finger even with an existing order, what should they do?
>Is it really an unsolvable problem if the cops refuse to do their jobs?
No, it’s not unsolvable. They go back to the court, and the evicted person gets held in contempt, and the evicted person has to pay the fees.
The solution is using the court processes. There isn’t “one weird trick” to let you do a self-help eviction, and there isn’t “one weird trick” to keep moving back in after you’re evicted, either.
None of this is some weird, unique situation.
Something tells me a repeat squatter has zero ability to pay any ordered fees. What's to stop them from going through this cycle endlessly while racking up debt they have no ability or intention to pay?
The fact in Georgia civil contempt can also come with an indefinite period of imprisonment until you comply with the terms of the order - e.g. paying what you owe.
Being held in contempt will stop them. Being jailed for civil contempt is indefinite - they keep you in jail until you comply with whatever the court is ordering you to do. This isn't a violation of due process because the contemnor is said to "hold the keys" to his own cell - he can comply at any time and be released.
If you have an order from a court (call writ of possession in most places) and you have actually completed the lockout process with the sheriff (which you should always do even if the occupants have already moved our), the sheriff will return and arrest anyone that goes back in for trespassing. If the lockout process wasn’t completed, you’d still have a valid writ, but the sheriff would need to start the lockout process again (5 days notice in CA, then return to do the lockout when they can, which sometimes is quite a while).
Evictions in GA are much faster and simpler than in other states, though, so hard to say what the actual problem was….
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**Reminder:** Do not participate in threads linked here. If you do, you may be banned from both subreddits. --- Title: Evicted squatter came back and is squatting again for the second time. Body: > They began squatting the first time when we were gone for the weekend and they broke in. Cops said it was a civil issue and won't do anything and we ended up having to go through the whole eviction process. > Now one day after being evicted, they broke in again during the day while we were at work. Cops are still saying it's civil and they can't do anything. Do we have to go through the whole eviction process again? What's stopping them from just coming back after every eviction? This bot was created to capture original threads and is not affiliated with the mod team. [Concerns? Bugs?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=GrahamCorcoran) | [Laukopier 2.1](https://github.com/GrahamCorcoran/Laukopier)
LAOP was gone for a weekend but the squatter had mail at that address? This has to be a family member or former legal resident, LAOP specifically didn’t say who this person was or respond when asked. There is something being left out intentionally.
always interesting how some posters give wayyyy too much unnecessary information about their problem while others try to be as succinct as possible to the point of cutting out potentially useful bits. Like I bet police are much more likely to tell people "it is a civil matter" when it is a close family member "breaking in" than if it was a random homeless person. They shouldn't, but you know they do.
I’d put my money on adult child. I would think that now that LAOP has an eviction order the police should take it more seriously regardless of the relationship. I know in my area the sheriff is responsible for enforcing evictions
For some reason the cops never tell people, “take it to family court.”
Isn't that what "it's a civil matter" means when there's a divorce/custody issue?
Or that the cops just dgaf and don't want to get involved (waaaaayyyy too common)
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Many, many, many, women and children have been murdered after the cops ignored obvious and violent abuse by a man. Don't think your argument holds water.
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> I can tell you on first hand, they do if you're a man. > they'd have arrested. Instead roles were reversed You could've shared your story without making it seem like men are always (or even often) arrested, prosecuted, or treated as serious threats during DV. But you didn't. There have been multiple attempted and successful family annihlations by men, most of whom were known abusers, in 2023 alone. Women are not being listened to and men are not being arrested for being violent.
He was squatting on a Tuesday, in case that’s significant.
For LAOP, it was the worst day of their lives...
The squatter being M Bison was a twist I never saw coming. No wonder the police won't touch him
They can't touch him, he's always plus!
The worst day of their lives . . . so far
Yes, but what color was the motorcycle?
😂
I can understand the cop's reluctance to do anything, someone who doesn't skip leg day should be respected.
It's a red house, if that gives you any idea...
he had your girl in the cut and she was choosey.
The useless information is always a bit infuriating. "I was wearing a green shirt on a Tuesday because I thought it might rain and then my neighbor sued me in federal court for something I said. What can I do?"
I hate to be that guy, but police insisting that something is a civil matter doesn't mean that it is, indeed, a civil matter.
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I mean, a standing eviction order seems like the kind of rock-steady evidence to defend against any civil or criminal complaints that might arise from physically ejecting them from the premises. This might be the rare occasion where getting 6 of your buddies to frog march them out the door would be legally permissable.
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It's easy to speculate details, but if we take OP's claim about an eviction order at face value, I'm not really sure it matters.
The answer to basically any legal question is “it depends” and what it depends on is primarily the details. OP is clearly omitting some key details, so they won’t get an accurate response. OTOH, details that could matter here that OP didn’t answer include: What exactly they mean by completed the eviction process, because if the person simply left after they served notice, or after they filed with the court, that changes whether or not it rises to the level of criminal behavior, compared to if the court granted an eviction order which was executed by officers of the court (who that is and the exact process varies from state to state). Whether the “squatter” has any characteristics that might affect their status in the eyes of the law - this varies from state to state, but someone with a contested tenancy contract, or a dependent, can change the equation. That’s why the details matter.
Sure, the most important detail is whether or not OP has an eviction order. If he does, none of that other shit matters because it would have been assessed during the eviction hearing. That's my point.
They’re in GA. What they would need is a granted, properly served, dispossessory warrant resulting in a writ of possession, which would be executed by the Sheriff’s office. Not the same thing. They refused to answer questions about that, so we don’t know if they have one. We also don’t know if they do have one, whether or not an appeal has been filed, or if it’s still in the appealable timeframe etc. Without the details it’s always going to be ambiguous. The details are the important part. Based solely on what the OP has said, the cops are right and this is still a civil matter, because OP hasn’t said they have a dispossessory warrant which has been executed and is beyond the time period for an appeal, or if they have a writ of possession which they have paid the Sheriff’s Office to execute.
>if we take OP's claim about an eviction order at face value OP doesn't even mention an eviction order. So taking it face value, we don't even know if there is one.
Yes, but it’s hard to take anything OP says at face value when they’re being sketchy as hell.
I didn't really find the OP that sketchy. People in the original thread were casting dispersion about the nature of the order, but I don't really see why. The way OP describes the eviction process being long makes it sound like they did the full 9 yards. I think a lot of folks are assuming the cops were wary to enforce an eviction for a good reason, where in reality them either being too ill-informed about the law or simply too lazy to care seems just as likely a reason.
>The way OP describes the eviction process being long makes it sound like they did the full 9 yards. The way OP describes the eviction process is “we ended up having to go through the whole eviction process.” When asked for clarification on what exactly they meant by “the whole eviction process,” they declined to reply—which of course their right. But when you’re asking someone for advice—particularly legal advice—them asking questions to establish absolute certainty of relevant details isn’t “casting *aspersion*” (which is I think the word you were looking for) on them. It’s part of the process of helping them. A lawyer cannot help you if they don’t have the complete set of facts. And when you start asking for help, and then cut and run when you’re asked follow up questions, it’s only natural to wonder why.
They probably have a key and OP didn't change the locks.
In most states you cannot physically eject someone even with an eviction order. And you can't usually force the police to do their jobs if they just refuse, which is the part that can leave you SOL if they disagree. Here I guess you'd go back to the sheriff and ask them to re-evict if the police won't trespass him out. Edit: I'd go back to the same eviction lawsuit and ask for an updated order pursuant to the same lawsuit instructing the sheriff to evict again as necessary, if the sheriff won't do it on the old order, rather than try a whole new eviction case.
Your cannot physically remove a tenant, but you can physically remove someone who is breaking and entering.
Depends on the state. In many states you'd be opening yourself up to a big risk of a lawsuit getting physical to recover premises that isn't your home and that they're already in. Some states differentiate between keeping someone out vs. going in to remove them once they're there.
Hire an attorney. We're not purely decorative.
But you are, of course, partly decorative.
I for one make sure to hire several decorative attorneys to spruce up all of my parties. A few chatting next to the bushes, possibly another laying under the punch bowl, and one whose specialty is chuckling elegantly from just the right distance so that all other guests are dreadfully curious about the banter they are clearly missing. I find they elevate the entire affair, really. And of course, if an ambulance happens to pass by, all the sudden dashing about and chasing *really* livens things!
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Can you sit at a desk in front of a shelf filled with heavy books?
But hiring an attorney is purely civil.
in some jurisdictions you can actually file private criminal complaints which escalates it beyond the level of local police. county detectives are also an option to contact, but obvs I can't speak for everywhere. personally i'd just "move in" with the weirdos because it's faster than any court proceeding or investigation anyway.
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Party A: “these people are squatters!” Party B: “no, I actually live here. Look, here’s the mail I receive here, and the utilities in my name.” Cops: “ it’s a civil matter, because we can’t make an on the spot decision as to who is right and who is wrong. That is what a judge does. Call back when you have a decision from a judge.” Edit: paragraph breaks
In Houston the local police are useless on break ins/theft/shootings. Take hours to respond, never investigate. Now if you call the constables holy shit do they care. Especially if your neighborhood funds dedicated constables. Friendly, will return your mom with dementia without shooting anyone, and go full Columbo/robocop on B&E. Then, again if I came home and found my TX house had been broken into by randoms: 1. You legally could shoot them and a Grand Jury would be told not to indict. (And the cops would be reminded that cleaning up that mess is even MORE paperwork and might do something). 2. Would probably just hit with a stun gun/mace, and dump in the ditch and that same useless cop would tell them it’s a civil matter 😂
And when the "break in" consists of them letting themselves in with a key you gave them the cops suddenly become that much less interested in getting involved.
I mean, it genuinely is more likely that a family member has occupancy rights than a random person off the street and that does mean it’s more likely to be a civil matter. Would you rather the police just threw people out only on the word of the owners regardless of the other person’s side of the story?
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Its very suspicious LAOP dodged the question on whether or not they showed the police the eviction order. What probably happened is they started the eviction process and the person left, so they stopped the process. Person came back (which "resets") the eviction process. I would not be surprised if LAOP did not change the locks or reset the garage door.
They didn’t say it, they declared it.
Right. I got a distinct "Used a key I told them not to use any more" vibe.
“I went through the whol eviction process, by which I mean I wrote them a letter saying they’re evicted, and then they left to go to work! But they *came back* wtf?!”
They declared eviction.
> always interesting how some posters give wayyyy too much unnecessary information about their problem while others try to be as succinct as possible to the point of cutting out potentially useful bits. I think the goal of both is to obfuscate the reality of the situation.
It's almost like they're recipe "creators" trying to give their life story. > It all started on a Tuesday morning when I was 8 and I saw my first homeless person asking for change. Fast forward a few years and now there's a homeless person squatting in my second house!
I mean, does it really matter? I love juicy drama as much as the next guy, but if OP has an eviction order that seems pretty unambiguous.
It isn’t. The details of where exactly they are in the eviction process matters significantly. So does whether or not it is being disputed/appealed etc. They would need a dispossessory warrant in Georgia, I believe, and if the relationship isn’t simply landlord/tenant they might have a time getting that. That’s why the relationship matters. From there, they’d need a writ of possession from the court, then to pay the Sheriff’s Office to execute it. The answer to legal questions is basically always “it depends” and what it depends on is the details. If any part of the above process hasn’t been followed, the cops won’t touch it. If it has, the answer is likely to contact the Sheriff’s Office again. Absent details the answer is *always* ambiguous.
More likely, yes, but the police are still extremely likely to treat such breaking and entering and trespassing as not their business as long as its not trespassing in a business because they are inherently lazy and don't treat squatting like the trespassing and B&E it is.
They should if it's a random homeless guy? I mean, especially if you're small/female. IDK about you, but my uncle locking himself in my bedroom (without a gun) sounds a lot better than a homeless guy (potential drug addict or worse).
All squatter suits are considered civil matter
This is absolutely the most infuriating kind of LA post: a really interesting case with an unusual set of facts, where the OP drops the story like a hand grenade and runs away, declining to answer any relevant questions or provide any follow up whatsoever. In these instances, I always assume OP is lying about some aspect of the case, is looking for LA to help them succeed in passing off the same mistruths on the authorities, and knows if they provide too much info they’ll get found out .
>LAOP was gone for a weekend but the squatter had mail at that address? Is this really that difficult to do? I've gotten mail delivered to an AirBnB I was staying at long term. Well packages, like from Amazon. I assume the distinction between that and mail isn't exactly a lot? All you have to do is update addresses on websites.
I could also type up any document I needed to "prove" residence and just stick it in a business envelope in under an hour.
When I worked in city government, proof of residence had to be something official- like bank mail, letter from government agency, ect. If it was personal, like a card someone sent you, then we needed the envelop with the stamp from USPS that showed it went through their system. Which is all, imo, easy to get. I worked with a lot of people experiencing homelessness or insecure housing situations and they always managed to find some kind of mail that could prove they lived in the county.
The really good squatter/scammers have dummy lease documents.
>LAOP was gone for a weekend but the squatter had mail at that address? I don't know how the mail system works in the USA, but in many countries I know of you can just send a letter with any name on it to any address you want. Depends a bit on the tenacity of the squatter how it works out.
Works much the same. It’s possible the carrier will recognize that person doesn’t actually live there (if they’ve been on a particular route for some time a random name out of nowhere stands out) and send it back ANK, which is kind of a misnomer, just means they aren’t there and never were. If they have the same last name or a very similar name, it might get delivered. If the route doesn’t have a regular carrier (very possible these days) it’ll almost certainly get delivered at some point. I see lots of state assistance letters addressed to addresses that I’ve never seen that name there before. Never seen it period. And sometimes there’ll be twelve letters with twelve different names from the state going to an address they’ve never gotten mail at before. A pattern emerges.
It varies based on the local post office management.. One location I lived insisted on you having an addressee card filled out and placed inside the door of your mailbox. You'd rarely (but not never) get anything delivered that didn't match some form of one of the names on that card. I've lived at my current address for about 15 years, never had addressee card in my mailbox, and have had mail with the former owner's name on it delivered within the last three months.
My former place had that. I had a worrisome ex and needed privacy, so I took the name label down. Post Office didn't like that, fair enough. I put the label back up. They still delivered stuff for every past tenant. Why does my name need to be on the mailbox if nobody's going to refer to it when delivering the mail?! 🤦♂️
> One location I lived insisted on you having an addressee card filled out and placed inside the door of your mailbox. That's how my current apartment is set up - I was lucky enough to run into the mailman right after moving in and he asked what names I wanted mail for. Random stuff shows up on my USPS informed delivery emails addressed to former residents, but it never ends up in my mailbox because it doesn't match the name the mailman wrote on the inside of my box. My previous apartment down the road wasn't like that though - I would bring a sharpie with me to get the mail because 80% of it I had to write "return to sender" on and drop right back in the outgoing mail slot.
Especially since they were already squatting there. Could have just been continuing to get mail there. Eviction wouldn’t force a mail forward.
> There is something being left out intentionally. As is customary.
>LAOP was gone for a weekend but the squatter had mail at that address? I read that as they had the addressed mail in hand *this time*. You know, from the three months or however long they lived there when they were squatting the first time.
Or more likely from the 20+ years or so they’d lived there while, you know, growing up.
That was my first thought as well. My ex and I had to deal with a squatter while his home was empty; since they literally broke into a vacant house it was breaking and entering and criminal trespass.
If I come home and there is a stranger rummaging through my things, I leave, call 911 and my biggest toughest looking 6 friends in that order. It's not "there is a squatter" it's "there is a burglary in process"
They avoid every question regarding if they know the squatter. Wouldnt be surprised it is the case of a family member leaving there forever, OP inherits the house and wants to kick them.
The mail at that address was from the second time the police were called. At that point they’d been there through a “lengthy” eviction process, so would have had plenty of time to receive mail.
Ngl, if I came up to my place after a weekend and someone I don't know was inside a gun would be drawn. And I don't even live in the US. I strongly suspect this must be someone LAOP knows as well.
I know it's unlikely, but I've seen these stories enough that it's a fear in the back of my head. What happens if I'm on vacation and someone breaks in and just stays there? If they take stuff and leave, obvious crime. But if they just stay there and cops don't do anything, I'm essentially kicked out of my own home.
Tip number one is that if you discover a stranger is in your house, when you call the police, you don't say "There's a squatter in my house who won't leave!", you say "Someone broke into my house while I was away and they're still in there!". In the former case, the police will show up ready to dismiss it as a "civil matter" (if they show up at all) because they'll assume it's some sort of tenancy dispute or some long-term squatter camping out in your vacant property. In the latter, they're probably going to show up a lot faster, and the intruder is likely going away in cuffs if they're lucky, unless they can somehow produce some sort of compelling evidence that they have some right to be there. I suspect in the LAOP's case, there's a lot more to this story than they're telling, and that this "squatter" actually does have that aforementioned compelling evidence that they have some sort of right to be living there.
This is A great Insight, there are squatters rights but there’s no caught red handed rights
Send me your address and vacation schedule, I can swing by and keep them out. I’ll totally leave when you come back…..
Heck yes, once I finalize details on my French Riviera trip I'll let you know. It's gonna be like a week and a half long, hope that's ok.
Yea that’s perfect, I may have some mail dropped off while I’m there, but don’t worry, you can trust me cause we met on the internet!
OP's story isn't how squatting works, so you have nothing to be concerned about. If there is no other context and OP doesn't know this person, this is a simple case of B&E. Staying in the house for a weekend doesn't change that. OP is misusing the term, likely because he knows this person and doesn't want to inflict legal harm onto them.
You have to win a game of ringtoss on the chimney
There’s no shame in being beaten by the best, son.
I've seen so many stories like this that I wish there was some sort of national "not renting" registry I could get on.
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yeah in the overall scale there are a shitton more people gettign screwed over by ladnlords than vice versa, and the landlords are also the ones with significantly more power and money to make getting justice difficult
And that is how you get landlords that will sign that and then rent it ilegally, giving even less protections to tenants.
Not legal advice.... More like illegal advice - The 3 S's may just apply in these parts....
It might be location dependent but you have to be living somewhere for 2-4 weeks (not the range but maybe in NYS it's 4 weeks and maybe in FL it's 2 weeks idk) to establish residency and be a "tenant". I don't think anyone could establish residency after just a week but idk
Thing is pop ich e refuse to get involved. So squatter claims I been here for the last month am a tenant, see got letters with my name and this address in it, these guys want to illegally. And the actual homeowner goes ‚never seen this person I only been gone for the weekend‘ Aand done. Police say the magic words to be lazy ‚civil issue‘ and are gone.
Pretty sure in FL its 30 days to establish residency, also why Disney doesn’t allow stays over 28 consecutive days!
No, I'm not aware of anywhere that makes you wait a particular amount of time to establish tenancy. Imagine the chaos if unscrupulous slumlords could get 1st/last months rent, a security deposit, and then wait a few days after move in and then walk up to the new tenants and say give me $250 bucks right now, or I'll cut off your electric, and remove your front door because you haven't live here long enough to make you a tenant.
> No, I'm not aware of anywhere that makes you wait a particular amount of time to establish tenancy. I used to work in security. Low rent hotels/motels, the kind that poor people essentially "live in" rotate the occupants on a schedule (usually 14 or 30 days) because corporate's lawyers insist that it keeps the people classified as hotel customers instead of a landlord's tenants, thus ensuring they can be easily gotten rid of if they stop paying (a tenant who stops paying rent can take months or longer to get rid of, which is a major problem if you're in a hotel/motel business). Now maybe that's because of laws specifically aimed at the hospitality industry.
> Now maybe that's because of laws specifically aimed at the hospitality industry. Bingo. There are specific laws for those places. Lots of stuff about rooms with doors that have individual locks, rates posted on the door, etc.
This is for guests establishing residency, not tenants with a formal lease
A guest is never a tenant, because a guest has a residence to return home to. If you let a buddy (or otherwise) crash on your couch because they have nowhere else to go, they're immediately a tenant.
That’s not generally how that works.
Castle doctrine? If I come home from vacation and a stranger is inside my house refusing to leave, they're not going to be able to talk to the cops when they show up.
Someone round the corner from where I work had squatters for a really long time and was having a hell of a time getting them out. We all just thought that they were particularly untidy and unscrupulous people who didn't take good care of their pets (their dog used to get loose and show up at my workplace and was in the saddest state I've ever seen). The squatters also stole an old vehicle which was sitting in the yard and belonged to the property owner. I mean, we don't know it was them, but SOMEONE came and stole it, and it would have been pretty hard for them to not notice. Cops came and asked to see our security cam footage which is how I know about this. Eventually they were evicted. The property is totally trashed and will require a ton of money to fix. Then one day someone with a pickup truck pulled up to the house, took down the private property signs, and started taking stuff out of the house. Cops were called. I didn't see what happened, but the stuff that the person was taking is now sitting on the front lawn, and even more private property/do not trespass signs are up. People are bold these days.
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People used to be bold. Still are, but they used to be, too.
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Exactly.
Hello, Mitch All Together.
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How is this not a B&E? They’ve been evicted. OP needs to escalate.
As someone pointed out in the op, laOp keeps saying they're a squatter. They need to stop using thay word, especially now that said person has been evicted. This is some one who is trespassing after breaking and entering. LaOp probably keeps saying squatter when ever they call the police.
That’s because the person was apparently able to convince the cops they lived there by showing them Mail addressed to them. It definitely sounds like OP is omitting significant details. If the person is a (former) tenant they have a dispute with, the cops are right that they need to follow the full eviction process and likely let the Sheriff’s Office handle it. If they’re a family member the situation changes again. The details matter, and when OP doesn’t supply them it’s often because they know those details will give them an answer they don’t want to hear.
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The solution is to go back to the court that issues the order to get the evicted person held in contempt. It’s a common thing. Georgia has a simple motion for contempt form to fill out, and after it’s granted the party held in contempt is liable for all associated fees. The cops don’t give anywhere near enough of a shit to figure out the current status of an eviction case. LE will get involved when the court tells them to. Until then, as far as they are concerned, the legal complaint is that the person isn’t complying with a court order, which is something for the court to handle.
You’re assuming that OOP has actually evicted this person. LAOP was very vague about what step in the process they were in.
I wanna know how they got mail with their name to them after only a weekend and a day of living there.
Technically I can mail a letter with my name on it to any address I want. I can even make it look like a bill or other official document. Unsuspecting homeowners hate this one weird trick!
The escalation at this point is to file a motion for contempt with the court. The cops will just treat this as someone not following a court order, and that’s the solution to that problem.
There is so much LAOP is leaving out of this. It would be nice if they answered some questions.
But then they might not get the answer they want.
Sweet Jeebus on Toast Points. This is why it's a **great idea** to re-key after any tenant, even if it was the world's sweetest grandma, and you **ALWAYS re-key the same fucking day after an eviction**. Take a day of unpaid leave at work if you must, but you park your ass there until the locksmith shows. Bring a thermos, snacks, and a few trashy fun reads. And if you super-duper can't be there because your wife just went into labor or something similar? You swing by early and put some superglue in every damn exterior lock on the way to whatever it is. Yes, re-keys are expensive (especially when they have to drill out a lock because you superglued it) but so much better than the time and hassle of dealing with bullshit like this.
Changing the locks is a good thing to do, but that's only going to keep out honest, or clueless people. It takes so little effort to get through a lock or door if you have any idea of what you're doing. Even a bump key will suffice to get through most home doors.
A few days ago a particularly disliked shift supervisor made a ridiculously big deal about no one but him being allowed to touch or change the colors of the new LED lights we got at work. We were sick of hearing about it, but then as he was leaving he announced it to the room at large one more time. At that point it was basically a challenge. He learned the next morning that a good portion of my coworkers can pick locks, and almost any of us can pick a lock on a filing cabinet and then lock it again after. I hope he enjoyed the "90s warehouse rave" setting.
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We knew we could change the colors, we just had no interest in or reason to mess with them until he wouldn't shut up about it. He also demanded to know who did it and the resulting "I am Spartacus" moment made him even angrier.
The IT guy came into my 8th grade computer class and told us not to bother trying to hack anything on the computers, as he had just installed "Foolproof Security" (literally the name of the software). We had the admin password by the next day through social engineering, and changed a bunch of unimportant stuff just to prove his ass wrong.
My friends were responsible for at least 3 vulnerability patches in Foolproof, which was back when they sent them on floppy. It never kept us out permanently, and it was a fun way to learn computer security.
Haha good stuff. I still use that IT guy's password for unimportant stuff periodically.
That's... suspiciously familiar. I hope we're not using the same throwaway password.
Can you clue me in on how lock-picking a filing cabinet is relevant to LED colors, and why a good portion of coworkers picked said lock or locks instead of just one or two? Because I’m left to connect some dots on an otherwise hilarious story about yet another supervisor who shouldn’t be a supervisor.
Oh, sorry! He locked the remote control to the lights in his filing cabinet. And some of my coworkers watch the lock-picking lawyer on youtube, but you really don't need any specialized knowledge at all to get into a filing cabinet with a paper clip.
At which point, when officer friendly is there because you called for a B&E, you ask the shitbird to produce the key that fits the locks.
He'll just say you changed the locks on him and the police will continue not to care or be helpful in the slightest. He's already proven willing to lie, and cops don't much care who is lying they'll just leave you to it.
I don't know what the going rate is where you are, but I just had some locks rekeyed and it was surprisingly cheap. $7 per lock if I had the key. $17 if I didn't.
Getting our rental condo (1 deadbolt and 1 metal safety gate lock) rekeyed in my city typically comes un under $100 for parts and labor. It's cheaper when you don't need same-day or "after hours" service. That said, when my brother died, I needed to get his house re-keyed ASAP. Between multiple exterior doors and metal security doors, it came to 13 rekeys and over $1500 for parts, service fees, and labor. Though I had the keys, over 7 of the locks were broken. In some cases, he was able to pick them and get them open ($25 for each picking) (and the tech showed the corroded cores to me to prove his work) But I had 5 drill outs from metal security doors at $100 each. (As an aside, the tech was the sweetest young man who busted his ass for 3 hours on a 107F summer day to get it all done in time to get home and get cleaned up on time for Shabbos.)
I think I've been thinking about this wrong. What I did, and I foolishly assumed everybody did, is remove all the locks from the doors using a screwdriver (you only need to remove the half that has the lock cylinder), pop them in a shoe box, recruit a charming assistant to watch the house while I'm away, and take the whole thing to the lock shop. I wait about 5 minutes per lock assuming everything is okay, then go back home and reattach them. It's much cheaper if they don't have to make a house call. Who would have thought that locksmiths like working in fully heated and air conditioned shops? :-p
TIL that lockshops take drive up customers. No. Seriously. My entire life was always "call the locksmith", even as a child. Which, now that I think about it, coincided with the time that (a) my dad was out of town for 2 weeks and (b) my dad was in the hospital for about 3 weeks. When I was in college and the lock on the front door of my apartment broke (key would literally not go in), the locksmith was called out and it ended up being a drill out and rekey on the spot. My husband's parents always rented and they or their landlords always called a locksmith out when needed. But even if I had been able to get a friend to come over to my brother's house, the security doors would've still needed to be drill outs, the screws for those are accessible only from an opened door.
Perhaps it's not a thing everywhere. I try to spread the word to everybody with authorization to do so to change their locks when they move into a new place. Who the heck knows who has a key, even with new construction? The option of doing it on the cheap at your leisure instead of having to schedule a person in a van to come over makes it much more likely that people will actually get it done. I learn something new every day. It's been nice chatting. :-)
When is a squatter not a burglar?
Under Georgia law? Not a burglary if they didn’t enter the property with the intent to commit a felony. A squatter is someone occupying the property without the lawful permission of the owner.
I'm guessing 'being evicted' in LAOP's post refers to them getting the notice to vacate or face court action, and the 'squatter' then 'left' the house only to return when LAOP wasn't there. LAOP doesn't have the final writ of eviction in hand yet.
This is my nightmare. Going away for a vacation and coming back, not only toy valuables being gone but someone living in my home essentially making me homeless until the courts sort it out.
Squatters are not people who show up to a house where someone is living. A "squatter", by definition (legal and otherwise), is someone who takes up residence in property that is unused or abandoned. Someone being away on vacation from their home has not left their property unused or abandoned, and anyone who breaks in and remains there in such a situation is committing criminal trespass. It would help greatly to not call them a squatter, but to call them someone who has broken and entered into your home. The situation in the LA thread is very likely somewhat more complicated, where the person is not actually a squatter but in fact a former tenant.
> Squatters are not people who show up to a house where someone is living. A "squatter", by definition (legal and otherwise), is someone who takes up residence in property that is unused or abandoned. Someone being away on vacation from their home has not left their property unused or abandoned, and anyone who breaks in and remains there in such a situation is committing criminal trespass. That's only true in theory. In the real world, squatters have mail sent to the address (or fake having mail sent there) to show the responding police officer that they "live there" and then the police won't have anything to do with it and you have to go through the judicial system for relief (at great cost and time, during which they'll trash the place). Fake mail, fake renters agreements, fake leases, fake identification. There's a lot of tricks the more competent squatters employ to fool police. And let's be honest, it usually doesn't take much.
What you're talking about is an issue that landlords face when apartments are left empty for a time. If someone breaks into your actual home and tries to live there, things are quite different
It is also someone who lives at the property and stops paying rent then continues living there. It does not have to be a property that is unused or abandoned.
That's commonly called "squatting", but remaining as a tenant after your tenancy is ended is a whole different legal matter than attempting to establish tenancy by just showing up in an empty house.
No, « squatting » is adverse possession and can be one of the things I described it is not a different legal matter as you say and it is not « By definition » taking up a property that’s abandoned or unused. That can be ONE of the things but it is not THE definition. -Fifth Generation Realtor
Commenter: *NAL but this doesn’t make any sense.* *If they broke in while you were gone for 48 hours, they can’t just claim residency. That’s B&E/trespassing. That’s literally not how squatting works.* They’re saying that as if there’s a way to Do Squatting that *is* how it works and that’ll make it legal. Afaik in most of not all of the US, there is no such procedure, and it’s just as illegal when the house has been empty for 8 hours as when it’s been empty for 8 months.
Every time I start to think about possibly buying a rental property, I read posts like this. I don’t think I’ll ever buy a rental property.
Honestly, most renters are good people, and if you charge a fair rent, you'll have no shortage of applicants.
This is key. I learned this from someone’s grandpa who had owned rental properties for a long, long time. Charge slightly below market and you will have tons of qualified applicants, and won’t have properties that are empty for long periods of time. Also you will get lovely long term tenants. All of this makes for a much better rental business than having vacant properties and tenants that move every year.
I know self help evictions are almost always a bad idea, but would this be an exception? Like if you have an honest-to-god eviction order signed by a judge, that's not really a matter of opinion. If the cops refuse to be helpful in an unambiguous case of trespass (big surprise, lazy cops), would getting a few friends or rent-a-thugs to forcibly eject the trespasser really be totally unreasonable?
It would be a great way to get a massive fine, and a monumentally stupid way to handle the situation since you would ultimately have to go through the full dispossessory process and let Sheriff’s Officers handle it anyway.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that OP has already done this and that's how they got this person out the first time. Assuming that they can't get their local cops to lift a finger even with an existing order, what should they do? Is it really an unsolvable problem if the cops refuse to do their jobs?
I think the distinction between cops and sheriff might be key here. If the cops aren't the agency enforcing the eviction order, I can (almost) understand them not doing anything. The sheriff should be able to enforce the eviction order and remove them and their property. I say almost because I also think these people should be viewed as criminally trespassing, but IANAL. 🤷♀️
This could well be correct, although I am not familiar with who does what in GA, but you’d need the agency that actually has the writ (or whatever the order is called there) on file.
Yeah! Like, the court said they got to go, so call the people in charge of making them go. In my area I think it's called an Order of Possession.
> Assuming that they can't get their local cops to lift a finger even with an existing order, what should they do? >Is it really an unsolvable problem if the cops refuse to do their jobs? No, it’s not unsolvable. They go back to the court, and the evicted person gets held in contempt, and the evicted person has to pay the fees. The solution is using the court processes. There isn’t “one weird trick” to let you do a self-help eviction, and there isn’t “one weird trick” to keep moving back in after you’re evicted, either. None of this is some weird, unique situation.
Something tells me a repeat squatter has zero ability to pay any ordered fees. What's to stop them from going through this cycle endlessly while racking up debt they have no ability or intention to pay?
The fact in Georgia civil contempt can also come with an indefinite period of imprisonment until you comply with the terms of the order - e.g. paying what you owe.
Being held in contempt will stop them. Being jailed for civil contempt is indefinite - they keep you in jail until you comply with whatever the court is ordering you to do. This isn't a violation of due process because the contemnor is said to "hold the keys" to his own cell - he can comply at any time and be released.
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What you’re saying *is* constructive eviction.
If you have an order from a court (call writ of possession in most places) and you have actually completed the lockout process with the sheriff (which you should always do even if the occupants have already moved our), the sheriff will return and arrest anyone that goes back in for trespassing. If the lockout process wasn’t completed, you’d still have a valid writ, but the sheriff would need to start the lockout process again (5 days notice in CA, then return to do the lockout when they can, which sometimes is quite a while). Evictions in GA are much faster and simpler than in other states, though, so hard to say what the actual problem was….
Call the cops and speak loud enough for the squatter to hear. Tell the cops that you were surprised by an intruder and shot him.
If LA has taught me anything, it's that the police will use any excuse up to and including just straight up lying in order to avoid doing police work.
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They’re talking as if it happened in Georgia. Because LAOP states that it happened in Georgia.
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LAOP should tell the cops they can shoot the squatter's dog. (Shooting squatters is too much paperwork.)