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Is that an issue people are seeing regularly? This story does not indicate it is.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Yes, it is pretty common now (although, I guess it depends on your definition of common!): https://www.quora.com/I-just-arrived-home-from-a-beautiful-vacation-to-find-squatters-living-in-my-home-now-I-m-the-one-living-homeless-while-the-cops-and-legal-proceedings-handle-this-what-should-I-do-next https://www.quora.com/I-just-arrived-home-from-a-beautiful-v... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLegsj31Pp8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLegsj31Pp8 https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/07/03/squatters-rights-leave-homeowners-forgotten/70364321007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/07/03/squatters-... https://www.foxnews.com/us/maryland-resident-squatters-bedroom-belongings-sold https://www.foxnews.com/us/maryland-resident-squatters-bedro... It has happened in Seattle already, enough for me to be worried about it. Everyone should think about it before leaving on vacation, since it is a real thing that you need to protect yourself against. Even if you rent, someone could break in to your place, change the locks, and then have a scrawled out fraudulent lease document. You would eventually get your place back, but being homeless for 3-6 months sucks. This just isn't a rich house speculator problem (though they are more at risk, of course).
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  It still sounds like a "well-heeled enough to disappear for weeks" problem though. A person doing that should be making arrangements for their property to be checked up on regularly; squatters are a problem, but so are water line breaks, gas leaks, etc. Leaving a property abandoned long enough for someone to move into it is creating a hazard for the neighborhood in general.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    You should be able to leave your house for two weeks and not come home to it being taken over. You don't have to leave it abandoned long enough, just long enough to get unlucky. I've had a few attempted break ins already, usually when I'm home so I can discourage them by turning on a light or yelling out the window (the police don't care, so no help there). I had a van pull up to my house a couple of days ago with a ladder (lots of windows on second floors open now) that booked it when they realized I was home. I do live in a neighborhood with a large unhoused neighbor population, who are well aware of squatter rights and looking for opportunities, so its not just a "well-heeled" problem for us. Frankly, if you tolerate this kind of behavior against rich people, it is eventually going to effect you as well (they just get bolder and bolder).
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      > You should be able to leave your house for two weeks and not come home to it being taken over. I just can't agree that's fundamentally true, unless you have in-home monitoring set up. Swizzle that to "You should be able to leave your house for two weeks without a water main break flooding it" or "You should be able to leave your house for two weeks without a gas leak blowing it up." Real estate ownership implies obligation. It's one of the reasons so many people choose to just skip out on that entirely and rent their residence. > Frankly, if you tolerate this kind of behavior against rich people, it is eventually going to effect you as well Frankly, if I tolerate leaving people unhoused long enough and in large enough numbers that it effects me, it should effect me. Those are probably fellow citizens and fellow neighbors, and if not, they're still fellow human beings. Adequate housing is a human right as per the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        The only difference between a liberal and a neocon is one mugging. You can smugly say “everyone has a right to sieze the housing they need”, until it turns into a right to your housing.
        shadowgovt 3y ago
        I agree. And if my attitude on this topic changes, I will be in the wrong when it does. Down that train of thought is "taxation is theft," and it's not a good place to be. (Cards on the table, I've come from the other side of the story: absentee landlord with undeveloped property sitting next to a relative's home, and the neverending fight to keep the dead trees on that property from crushing said home in a storm. The process to get a property that is owned by someone five states over who is holding it to be sold for 2x the market value and hasn't seen the property in fifteen years declared a nuisance property is atrociously long. Owning property implies an obligation to the place where it is owned. The law should have more teeth to enforce those obligations.)
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago

Yes, it is pretty common now (although, I guess it depends on your definition of common!): https://www.quora.com/I-just-arrived-home-from-a-beautiful-vacation-to-find-squatters-living-in-my-home-now-I-m-the-one-living-homeless-while-the-cops-and-legal-proceedings-handle-this-what-should-I-do-next https://www.quora.com/I-just-arrived-home-from-a-beautiful-v... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLegsj31Pp8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLegsj31Pp8 https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/07/03/squatters-rights-leave-homeowners-forgotten/70364321007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/07/03/squatters-... https://www.foxnews.com/us/maryland-resident-squatters-bedroom-belongings-sold https://www.foxnews.com/us/maryland-resident-squatters-bedro... It has happened in Seattle already, enough for me to be worried about it. Everyone should think about it before leaving on vacation, since it is a real thing that you need to protect yourself against. Even if you rent, someone could break in to your place, change the locks, and then have a scrawled out fraudulent lease document. You would eventually get your place back, but being homeless for 3-6 months sucks. This just isn't a rich house speculator problem (though they are more at risk, of course).

shadowgovt 3y ago
It still sounds like a "well-heeled enough to disappear for weeks" problem though. A person doing that should be making arrangements for their property to be checked up on regularly; squatters are a problem, but so are water line breaks, gas leaks, etc. Leaving a property abandoned long enough for someone to move into it is creating a hazard for the neighborhood in general.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  You should be able to leave your house for two weeks and not come home to it being taken over. You don't have to leave it abandoned long enough, just long enough to get unlucky. I've had a few attempted break ins already, usually when I'm home so I can discourage them by turning on a light or yelling out the window (the police don't care, so no help there). I had a van pull up to my house a couple of days ago with a ladder (lots of windows on second floors open now) that booked it when they realized I was home. I do live in a neighborhood with a large unhoused neighbor population, who are well aware of squatter rights and looking for opportunities, so its not just a "well-heeled" problem for us. Frankly, if you tolerate this kind of behavior against rich people, it is eventually going to effect you as well (they just get bolder and bolder).
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    > You should be able to leave your house for two weeks and not come home to it being taken over. I just can't agree that's fundamentally true, unless you have in-home monitoring set up. Swizzle that to "You should be able to leave your house for two weeks without a water main break flooding it" or "You should be able to leave your house for two weeks without a gas leak blowing it up." Real estate ownership implies obligation. It's one of the reasons so many people choose to just skip out on that entirely and rent their residence. > Frankly, if you tolerate this kind of behavior against rich people, it is eventually going to effect you as well Frankly, if I tolerate leaving people unhoused long enough and in large enough numbers that it effects me, it should effect me. Those are probably fellow citizens and fellow neighbors, and if not, they're still fellow human beings. Adequate housing is a human right as per the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      The only difference between a liberal and a neocon is one mugging. You can smugly say “everyone has a right to sieze the housing they need”, until it turns into a right to your housing.
      - shadowgovt 3y ago
        I agree. And if my attitude on this topic changes, I will be in the wrong when it does. Down that train of thought is "taxation is theft," and it's not a good place to be. (Cards on the table, I've come from the other side of the story: absentee landlord with undeveloped property sitting next to a relative's home, and the neverending fight to keep the dead trees on that property from crushing said home in a storm. The process to get a property that is owned by someone five states over who is holding it to be sold for 2x the market value and hasn't seen the property in fifteen years declared a nuisance property is atrociously long. Owning property implies an obligation to the place where it is owned. The law should have more teeth to enforce those obligations.)
        seanmcdirmid 3y ago