Laws protecting “squatters’ rights” are some of the most backward, least civilized things in our society, and they should be abolished in every city and state that has them.
Several high-profile incidents of squatting are in the news, and each story is more despicable than the last. One man in Seattle is being forced to stay 1,000 feet away from a property he owns because a tenant who hasn’t paid rent for two years has taken control of it. The problem is on display in Atlanta on a massive scale, with an estimated 1,200 homes being squatted on and police and courts unable to keep up with cases.
New York City has seen the worst stories. One woman was arrested because a squatter took over the home her deceased parents left her because squatters can steal homes in New York City after just 30 days. Another woman, Nadia Vitel, was allegedly beaten to death by two squatters who took over her deceased mother’s apartment.
Squatting is a despicable form of theft carried out by despicable people, as each of these stories makes clear. These people abuse laws that are put in place to steal from others and then have them punished (or, in Vitel’s case, allegedly beat them to death) for daring to try and reacquire what is legally theirs. Squatters are entitled dregs who contribute nothing but misery to society. So entitled, in fact, that one squatter in Florida called the police on the homeowner who pulled a gun on him for trespassing, thinking that he could get the man whose house he was trying to steal arrested.
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Fortunately for Floridians, the state is among the best-run in the entire country and has moved quickly to solve this problem. The state legislature overwhelmingly passed a law revoking squatters protections and allowing police to remove squatters at the request of property owners immediately, and squatters could be hit with felony charges.
This is the obvious solution to a problem that never should have existed. “Squatters’ rights” is legalized theft by any measure, and so long as those laws exist, entitled thieves will continue to abuse these laws to steal from people. Squatters deserve to have no legal right to the places they steal, and it is embarrassing that this problem even exists in the first place.