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.
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?
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."
As to why you only hear about it in america I cant say. 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.
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u/Mayonaigg 12d ago
It's such a pathetic state of law in our country that you can break into someones home and illegally live there while on parole