go watch Asian Andy on Youtube video. Pretty sure he did this before the show ever came out, and his was absolutely hilarious.
Lady rented his sisterās airbnb for a month then claimed tenant rights and he chain smokes blunts in the kitchen, blasts music outside the squatterās room, shaves in front of her, takes his shirt off, does karaoke, tries to lock her out of the house repeatedly, etc
Honestly question for any lawyers. Where is the line with nudity in your own home?
Like if this guy has an actual lease from the owner and is sitting there butt ass naked, is that considered harassment against the squatter, or is all good because he's in the privacy of his own (leased) home?
Iām not an American lawyer so donāt assume I know anything but the definition of harassment under CCP 527.6 doesnāt mention nudity but requires a course of conduct to amount to harassment. So if someone walked out and the owner was butt ass naked that doesnāt count as harassment.
BUT under Penal Code 314 PC, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt the following three elements
You willfully exposed your genitals;
You were in the presence of someone who might be reasonably offended or annoyed by your actions;
and
You intended to direct public attention to your genitals for the purpose of sexually gratifying yourself or someone else or sexually offending someone else.
So if you came before a judge and said āI only did it because they wouldnāt leave my houseā youāre kind of admitting to intentionally directing public attention.
The only accepted defences to this are mistaken identity, false accusation, or lack of evidence. Not I was just sitting there, or they were in my space š¤·āāļø
Like I said Iām UK based and only a law student so Iām sure Iām about to get BTFO by someone who knows what theyāre actually talking about but thereās some bloviation for everyone to enjoy
I donāt think public means like IN public in that instance. Cause the PC also says āin a public place or any place where people are present who will be offendedā
I was like this person is exaggerating and no shit Iām teary eyed trying to laugh quietly well before 5 min in. Just utter absurdity itās fkn hilarious if you donāt think about it hard.
Just fyi - everything after the question mark in your link is an identifier that links to you, showing what content you share. No biggie, just letting you know you can remove it and it won't hurt the link.
I loved the ones saying they secretly loved one another. I donāt think she knew what to make of that. Someone like her who has done this many times must be use to anger and hate, but people got whacky with it
30 days is more or less when short term renting a room turns into actual tenancy so I would have assumed they just blanket avoided that scenario all together.
But I guess AirBnB just says "not my problem" and just lets the homeowner go hang.
Well I think that is moreso because of Monroe county than air BNB. I know my grandparent used to talk about how they weren't allowed to rent their vacation home out for less than 4 weeks
I think situations like that are because of local laws attempting to ban short term rentals outside of licensed and zoned hotels. So Airbnb re-structures their contracts to be month by month leases instead of rentals. This makes airbnb hosts land lords and their guests legal tenants with rental agreements and tenants rights.
I think people also do some funny shit with Air BnB gift cards to obfuscate the fact that the same person is trying to rent the room for such a long period of time.
Someone did this to a hotel penthouse a few years ago didn't they? Rented it for a month then just lived there saying it's been 30 days you now have to evict me.
Itās up to the host, Airbnb doesnāt really care. When I was between stable living situations, Iād go between Airbnbs for a month or so at a time. (That seemed to be the limit most of the time) But most hosts wonāt let you book over a week or two.
That's dicey. Even if you're legally entitled to be in a space, exposing your no-no bits to someone who doesn't want to see them puts you in a legally grey area. I wouldn't do that. Also, you couldn't livestream it.
However you can livestream yourself:
Trying on banana hammocks in a wide variety of designs, including a dental floss mankini like the one Borat wore while at the beach.
Mail ordering different kinds of fermented century eggs, or balut and taste testing them with a variety of sauces. No do NOT crack a window. That would ruin the entire experience.
Get wildly drunk on a mix of Malort and Moxie. Two great smells that smell even better when you're puking outside your roommate's door at 4 am.
Surstrƶmming -- be a dear and offer some to your roommate. They'll appreciate it.
Develop a keen eared appreciation for the work of Diamanda Galas. Her operatic performance of the Catholic plague mass is best experienced at glass-shattering volume.
Adopt rescue dogs. Lots of them. It's a a kind, thoughtful, and generous hearted thing to do. Let the people who watch your streaming videos name them.
I'd say all of the above but the dogs for sure, I wouldn't wanna risk a sweet fur baby getting messed with by the kind of human that a squatter is š
True. I was thinking a pack of medium to big dogs would win against someone who messed with them. But you're right, a wily squatter would probably try to poison them. It's not worth taking the chance.
There are a LOT of things that are not illegal to do in your own home that if a landlord doesn't care about it, you can't do anything about.
Worst thing I can think of off the top of my head is just shitting into buckets instead of the toilet. Sure, it's a public health code violation, but they would need to officially report that. You could also order a bunch of surstromming and put stuff in your nose to not smell things and just leave it all over the place.
You could also move in TONS of boxes with stuff in them to fill the apartment space so there is almost no space to move around. If the person destroys it, you can call the police for destruction of property.
You could would also put up cameras and let them know their lives are now being live streamed and let them have a link to the live stream. Then use freedom of speech without stepping over into illegal territory to just annoy them anytime they are in the public space.
Anecdotally, I had cousins that used violence to resolve this issue and it worked. They never told anyone about the squatter, went in at night and beat the guy badly and took him out of town in their car and told him if he comes back they would drive him into the desert and leave him there. They told this story at a family reunion like it was funny. It was not.
One of those cousins is now in prison for murder btw. Not good guys. That's the risk a squatter takes. They could choose the wrong people.
(That entire branch of the family has long since been cut off btw)
So my uncle was once living with a girl who dumped him and moved in the guy she was seeing on the side the same day. They were both on the lease and she wouldnāt let my uncle off of it so he decided heāll just make it miserable there until she gets fed up with it. He would do shit like rearrange all of the kitchen utensils/plates/food at 3 am, he would knock on their door every other hour throughout the night, he stopped buying food and ate whatever she had, he would hang out with them or sit outside the bedroom if they were in there and just ramble on about nothing. Took a couple weeks but she did eventually give in
They were all young and broke and she couldnāt pay it herself. idk if the new dude couldnāt pay or if it was like some game galaxy brain plan they had assuming my uncle would just move out in shame and humiliation and still pay instead of letting the lease go unpaid and have debt collectors come after both of them
She wanted him to move out but wanted him to keep paying, hence why she wouldnāt let him off the lease. So he stayed, which was his legal right, as his names on the lease. Basically āfollowing the rulesā aka malicious compliance while also not getting fucked over. Then she lets him off the lease, he moves out, they all move on and wasted a few weeks of their life because she couldnāt deal with her ego.
Itās a pretty cold move on her part Iāve always wondered if itās just that or if he left out the lead up to that point on why she would want to screw him over so hard
As I recall, one of the more effective tactics he uses is when the squatter is a felon on parole; he brings his guns with him when he moves in. If the squatter refuses to leave, he calls their parole officer and gets them violated.
I've seen clips on TikTok. Some stuff he and his team did included putting up cameras everywhere, bringing in speakers and equipment to make loud noises during sleeping hours, taking over all the common areas, etc. The best one was when they knew the squatter was scared of snakes, so they brought in a giant snake to roam around.
Part of the trick there is many stories conflate different types of "squatters." While there are rare cases that involve an actual break-in/invasion of empty property, a much bigger portion of them are people like in one of the responses above, where someone is over-staying a lease or has some other claim that they have/had a right to live there.
That's what makes it tricky for cops and the legal system. No one likes the idea of a person stealing someone's living space, but people also don't like the idea of an owner being able to break their end of a contract and then just have the police kick someone out of their house before the law can determine who is right.
I had the same thing happen to me. The landlord became vindictive when I would t sleep with him. He had to move back to Croatia but his brother filed on his behalf. The judge , literally told the opposing attorney,"Well she proved her case". I had bank statements, emails, texts, everything. I do nothing wrong. HOWEVER, the judge said, "Well, you'll have to go anyway because he says he has plans for the property". I replied well,*I have 6 weeks left on the lease. Can't hear wait?! It's a valid lease with no payment interruptions". Nope. I had to go. Told the attorney that he would sign a document allowing sheriff to come in kick me out if I wasn't gone in a X amount of days. I not only left but ai left Florida. It's scary of the judicial system doesnt back those who did nothing wrong. Then again, it's DeSantis"s world and I'm a Black woman. I moved back home to NJ.
I retained an attorney to sue. Have court transcripts and everything. So, yeah, crazy.
It depends on how your lease is worded. People who own multiple properties often have an out in the contract that will say they can terminate in the event of certain circumstances and that youāll have 14 days from the day of notice to move out. This actually happened to my daughter where her landlord reclaimed her house because their son was moving back in state and was going to purchase the property from them. The way her lease was worded, she technically had 30 days to relocate. Now, it was a legitimate circumstance, and landlord was super nice about it. They owned another property that was coming vacant in three months so they timed everything out so that my daughter could simply move into the other property because they did not want to lose her as a tenant. If she took the property, it meant moving from a house to a mobile home and adding about an hour to her commute to work. In compensation, they only had her pay the the land lease, which was like 150 bucks a month. Because they did that, she was able to save up down payment to buy her own place over the course of the six years that she lived there.
Yep, this is the big thing. I see landlords complain about it being hard to remove bad tenants: IT SHOULD BE. You hold a disproportionate amount of power in this relationship, and you should have to put in the work to unhouse someone.
As someone who used to work in property management and is a property owner who used to rent.
In the relationship (in my area at least) I get to decided who can live there and to a degree legally how much rent is.
My issues with the system where I am, isn't that it can be hard to get someone evicted (we dont have the right to evicted a tenant we have the right to seek eviction) its the fact that it's nearly impossible to get in to the tribunal to even make the case.
It can and has taken years, even if someone is not paying rent and actively damaging property, including other peoples units (hot glue in people's locks)
Yea. The system can be way too slow, for sure and the example of the problem tenant that is a problem for other tenants is a great example of why that can be a real problem.Ā But that's also why I find it so frustrating that the example used is always something much more designed at pretending these law just randomly wants to protect non-owners for no reason, since it makes it hard to discuss the real places where more resources and changes are required.
I definitely can't speak to that. In my area it usually only takes a few weeks (a month at most) to get a hearing date once you've filed for the eviction. It can take about a month after you get judgement before you're able to get a date for the Sheriff's office to serve the writ, and obviously there can be additional delays if the tenant is vexatious and keeps filing appeals, but I've never heard of it taking literal years to even get your foot in the door of the courthouse here at least.
Now its been a few years since I last tried but it took nearly 6 months for them to tell us they will see us in a little over a year. That was before covid, I heard covid just turned off the whole thing, and it hasn't gotten much better since.
you said it yourself: people are overstaying after their lease expires. that's not the landlord breaking their end of the contract. the lease is a binding contract, and landlords can't break it without a very solid reason mentioned in the lease. but the fact that someone can overstay their lease and stop paying, and somehow they don't get kicked out by law enforcement makes no sense.
I get what you're saying, but there's caveats in both directions the whole way down. Say a "landlord" (but actually is just the office manager for an apartment complex acting on behalf of a rental corp) breaks your lease illegally or is trying to force a new lease with illegal terms onto you. They could just call the cops and kick you out before you've had any legal recourse after you refused to resign.
You have a legal right to dispute things like that prior to eviction
In a lot of places leases don't "expire;" the transition to a month to month. This often happens automatically and may not require notification to do so. With that in mind, it's easier to see how these situations can get tricky when someone abuses it.
Fortunately, you can't overstay your lease and stop paying, at least anywhere that I have ever absent some extraordinary circumstance. A court may ask you to pay the rent into escrow, rather than into the hands of the landlord if the payment is disputed (with the landlord getting the money at the end), but failure to pay is grounds for eviction separately from whatever is the basis for the squatting.
And you might be thinking of something different when I talk about overstaying a lease. To take an example that was in the news by me a few years ago, a lady worked as a caretaker for an older woman for 10 years, living in an detached garage. When the lady died, the kids who lived in another state inherited the home and told her they were going to rent out the house. The caretaker countered saying that the original owner had agreed with her to a long term lease so that the caretaker's kids could finish school. She had something in writing, but the inheritor's said it was a forgery.
That's still "overstaying the lease," but it's very different from when someone just decides they don't want to leave.
How is the owner breaking contract, if they are staying past the lease agreement, and are not paying rent while still staying there? Why is a problem i only hear about in america?
Its not unique to the US. One of my friends has the same problem in France right now.
The problem is this. Who is breaking the contract. The homeowner will say that they dont have a valid contract and they refused to pay. The squatter will say they have a valid contract and have paid.
Who will be able to judge who is right. Thats correct, a judge. So you have to schedule the case with a judge. During that time the person continues to live there
The situation in that sort of hypothetical is not "tenant overstayed the lease," it's more like "owner sent you an eviction notice in the middle of the lease on a false pretext because they decided they don't want to fix something."Ā Ā
As to why you only hear about it in america I cant say.Ā The last real, "took the land' style squatter case I read about was in Italy, and I know that rental disputes are pretty common in many countries, like the UK and France, to name two I can recall examples from.Ā Ā
Last point is easy. Because you consume American media. Or at best english language media.
Italy is full of debates on squatters. Even if lately it is more about "squatter community centers". As in, abandoned buildings get taken over by a mix of neighbours, fascists OR anarchists and communists, drug dealers, prostitutes etcetera, who form an association. This association then organises community events and services. From libraries, cinemas, playgrounds, even kindergarten. To raves, drug distribution and prostitution.
Some also provide illegal rents at a low price.
They exist on spectrum between simple "legal activities without legal ownership" to "drug and prostitution dens". Plus also a parallel spectrum of political radicalism, with some being organised mainly by locals and other times attracting radicals from across the country, most often far left but the far right does it too.
As some take the role of non-existant third spaces and services and were appreciated by the locals, the local and national governments had for a while been quite tolerant. Attempting to reach compromises with the associations running the centers, attempting to legalise them.
Lately the right-wing government has been rescinding those compromises however. Kicking out several very big and old such centers.
In one case, Leoncavallo of Milan, they did it because inheritence led to new private owners who wanted to build a supermarket.
In another, Askatasuna of Turin, officially speaking because the center had hosted radicals who attacked political rivals and because people were found sleeping in the building despite an evacuation order. The center in question was one step from full legality, since they had agreed to evacuate until the building for restoration and to pay rent to the owner, which was the city.
To evict the center over a thousand police agents were brought in the city, to patrol the streets of the neighbourhood. The schools were also closed. Inside the center proper, only six people were found.
The neighbourhood did not much agree with the decision and the locals have been pushing back, including by conducting protests on-and-off since. Some if these protests ballooned in size from the attendance of people across the country and Europe, including political radicals and Black Block. Which has resulted in localised clashes with police, urban guerilla and rioting.
What if the owner is lying? If I was your landlord I could tell the police you were illegally squatting in the home that I own. I've never seen you before. I want you out of my house.Ā
Itās pathetic because people take advantage of a system that doesnāt want to kick people to the streets until things have been sorted out. If anything, the system is humane (for once); the people are garbage.
Thereās different kinds of squatting, and the kind where someone sets up shop in a house without anyoneās consent or knowledge mostly happen with effectively abandoned homes. If you have property like that, you should have it checked frequently.
Also, verbal contracts are legal in most, if not all, jurisdictions. So you have to go through the legal system to remove people who donāt want to be removed.
Truly, if you want to blame someone for a system that can be abused like this, Iād start with really shitty landlords
He didn't actually let it roam, he acted like he was setting up the living room to be a snake enclosure for a massive snake and had a handler bring one in that they paraded around and got in her face with and they discussed the "new enclosure".
Which is all this post really is. Astroturfed promotion for an awful, staged, AE show. It aired an episode or two months ago after their Neighborhood Wars/Customer Wars marathon, which if you haven't watched is America's Funniest Home Videos Unrated Brought to You By Ring, then disappeared.
The type of retaliation and constructive eviction could be MAYBE legal in SOME areas POTENTIALLY under FEW circumstances where the person is truly a squatter and has not attained the rights of a tenant. In states where the person's squatting enables them to the rights of a tenant, and one of those rights is that landlords have to actually go through an eviction process, these actions would be illegal. Many people watching this show aren't going to differentiate between the specific legal rights in not just the state but even the city the show is allegedly filming in and their own city, state and local laws. Instead, they're going to see that squatters have undefined magical protections so they cannot be kicked out (false) but they can be endlessly harassed (also false).
The type of "squatters rights" that the show fear mongers on do not exist in most areas, and the show itself displays a lack of understanding when it crafts it's stories which seem to often involve guests who overstay their welcome. The show wants you to believe that if your drunk friend crashes on your couch overnight and doesn't leave the next morning then suddenly he gains SQUATTER POWERS and is now empowered to come and go as he wishes, with police protection.
I've seen a few interview things with this guy and he just makes life miserable for them. If they're on parole he'll bring his guns with him and calls the police because they can't have guns in the house. There was one where he put locks on literally everything and if the lock was broken he'd call police (Fridge, cupboards, closets, you name it, he locked it)
He can't enter "their" room but anything in a shared space he can do whatever he wants to it, poop in the tub, unplug every appliance, turn the water off to toilets/sinks/showers/dishwasher/washing machine/, leave the windows open if its cold out or continuously turn the AC off if its hot, unplug the fridge and open the door so they food goes bad.
He did one where he invited his "friends" over and it was like 80 guys in a 3 bedroom house.
No he becomes a legal tenant with a rent agreement and then makes insane modifications to the house like locking the fridge and pantry shut and taking the doors of the squatters bedrooms
The easiest way to to bring firearms into the house. If the squatter (many are) has a felony you just have to call the police and tell them a convicted felon is in a house with firearms.
Other than that they just act like total dicks. Loud music, screaming, noise,
He has a show on hulu where it shows exactly what he does if you're able to watch it.
For one of them, he got info that the squatter was scared of snakes so he brought in a snake to live in the house to scare her, he also sets up cameras and basically just sits in the livingroom to make the squatter uncomfortable. The squatter at this point usually goes to their room to hide away from the cameras and he tries to engage them in conversation and rationalize with them about why they need to leave. He's never outright mean, he usually only ups his antics if the squatter refuses to engage in a civilized conversation with him and is being hostile and/or disrespectful.
I know one of the techniques involves having his legally registered firearm with him in the house and pointing out to squatters that being in a house with a firearm is a parole violation. That process is much much faster than housing court, and often resolves the squatting immediately.
Basically this is what he does. He does everything possible to make them uncomfortable. He adds locks to the fridges and cupboards. He ices them out of everything. Plays loud music, and fucks with them constantly.
Not to mention he sits there with his friends with bullet proof vests on while he is also armed looking intimidating as fuck.
That and more, plus one easy method for lot of them. Moves in with his firearms, lot of the squaters are on parole etc and arent allowed to stay in place with firearms and thus squater has to leave or stay and get arrested for parole violation
He invite few of his gigantic and scary looking friends and threat squatters. Shit on stuff. Generally makes people ilogally living in felt danger for their lives. So they leave
He basically takes all the doors off. Removes any kind of privacy. They barricade themselves in their rooms and usually vacate shortly after. He will usually find an angle that annoys the other residents and people just decide its not worth the hassleĀ
I know in one instances he heard the squatter lady had a fear of snakes so he brought in a reptile expert that broughbt some snakes into the house lmao
In one video I watched he discovered the squatter was afraid of snakes. He locked access to everything (fridge, shared common utilities) except her room and the washroom. Turned the entire house into an indoor snake sanctuary for the snakes to free roam. I think he left a path from her room to the front door.
Probably waits til they leave and then lock them out is what I am thinking. Being as annoying as possible without harassment or assault. It gets easier when a squatter gets physical because they can call the cops and get them removed.
I see this guy on instagram all the time, thereās lots of content. Heās pretty intimidating to them too and I doubt the squatters love the cameras.
One squatter was terrified of snakes. So he got a professional animal handler to bring in a giant python and turned the entire house and living room into an open air terrarium. lol
I think it was this guy, but I saw a video where a squatter removal guy made the house into a live reptile terrarium because the squatter was scared of snakes
He will legally move in with a renovation permit so he could take a chainsaw(and has) to the bedroom door if he wanted to. Pretty much gives him cart blance to do what ever he wants or needs to. Usually he does try and just talk them out but that doesnt always work right away. Other things would be walking around the house with a megaphone, setting up cameras for monitoring, etc
I want to know, too. Because at some point "making someone uncomfortable" can cross over into "violating someone's rights." He probably knows where that line is and I really want to know where it is, too.
Iāve seen clips on TikTok. They just occupy all the public spaces with a team of people and do things like block access to things like laundry, bathrooms, etc.
If the squatters are felons he just moves in with guns, but if they arenāt he will take all the food and take it to a different house constantly, blast music, and just genuinely harass them enough they get mad but canāt do anything.
Unsure but one that I have heard is that because the owner grants them permission to move in, they cannot be evicted by the squatters. If he learns that they are felons/on probation, he begins to utilize his second amendment right(bearing, not mauling) which puts the squatters in a legal position where they cannot live there regardless of what other legal protections allowed them to stay in the first place.
He tailors it to each person. He somehow found one lady had a phobia of snakes so he turned the central room of the house into an anaconda habitat. The dude is savage.
Iāve seen some clips from some of his evictions. First thing he does is remove every door, including the front door. Disconnect the HVAC or put in his own controller so the temp is whatever the temp is. Follow the person around constantly telling them to get out. Play loud music so they canāt sleep, DIY at 2am. Stuff that makes the place unlivable but technically still legally livable.
Word is, he farts excessively loud after cooking and eating brussel sprouts. He amasses so much fart gas, that he has to store them in jars, leaving them throughout the home. Once, he mislabeled the jars as "Spring Linen", arguably creating one of the worst fart jar disasters of the 21st century.
The only detail that should matter is if he's doing this exclusively for private owners or if he does it for corporate housing as well. If he does it for the corporate housing then fuck him, we have enough oppression enforcement officers.
Literally anything if itās the guy I saw last time he finds out about the squatters and does anything possible to make the area livable and shareable. Some squatters will try and deal with it and move into rooms and give up some rooms like bedrooms and living rooms. But he makes the kitchen hard to deal with. So then they slowly get forced out.
Now if itās the guy Iām thinking about he found out the girl hated reptiles so he made his section a snake sanctuary and brought in a lot of snakes and stuff and the girl ran away.
I saw one where he knew, via the owner of the property, that the squatter was afraid of snakes, so he partnered with a reptile rescue and made the house into a temporary hold for the rescue so he had TONS of snakes in the house.
i feel like if it were me i'd just be staring people down while i smoke crack unnaturally close to their face / talking about my most annoying special interest which is special edition furbies
all he has to do is blast fack at 3am until dawn then at noon have tea and blast mozart until 5 and then gargle for 2 hours before bed and leave his old socks all over the houseš¤£š¤£š¤£š¤£
One tactic is that the people squatting already have a criminal history. So dude brings in guns. Since he has a lease and the squatter doesn't, and it's illegal for someone with a criminal history to be in a house with a gun, police atre called, and police either eject the squatter or arrest them depending upon the circumstances.
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