‘The law is not on your side:’ Homeowners are facing huge bills to clean up after squatters trash their properties – with New York City, Philadelphia and Los Angeles hardest hit due to lax landlord protections

Squatters who move into homes and trashing the place are leaving homeowners with massive bills as they struggle both to cleanup their properties and evict the illegal tenants.

Woke liberal cities including New York, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles have recently experienced in spike in the number of incidents with squatters having the protection of the law on their side when they automatically gain legal rights after just 30 days.

It means that it becomes a real challenge to evict them. 

In Los Angeles, landlords often have to pay to remove non-paying tenants while in Philadelphia, even if a court orders someone to vacate a property, the sheriff’s department may choose to do nothing at all if it means avoiding a confrontation.

The United States currently faces a reported $10.8 billion in rent debt as of May 2023, with 5.1 million households behind on their rent payments, according to data from the National Equity Atlas. 

Cities like NYC and LA known for progressive policies have witnessed a rise in such incidents where squatters acquire legal rights after just 30 days

Squatters who move into homes trashing the place are leaving homeowners with massive bills

In one Philly home, where the homeowner finally managed to wrestle control of their own property, the landlord entered to find walls daubed in graffiti, makeshift beds covering the floors and trash strewn about the place. 

‘This is how we found the place once the tenants were locked out by the sheriff,’ Anchor Realty co-owner Walter Lapidus told Fox Business. 

The tenant had signed an eighteen month lease but managed to get away with paying for only two months’ rent and landlord with a huge mess to clean up together with legal fees.

‘What I think people fail to see is that, in the attempt to help people who are facing homelessness – which is an obviously very important mission – these costs, the costs of cleaning this up, are passed on to the folks who pay the rent on time, and that’s how we lose the affordability in housing,’ Lapidus said.

The squatters leave the properties they move into completely trashed 

Landlords are left with hefty cleanup bills if they managed to get them to vacate the property

This Philadelphia property was left with graffiti all over the walls 

‘The laws are written to protect the tenant, not the landlord,’ Mitch Roschelle of Madison Ventures Plus, a venture capital  and private equity investment firm, told Fox News.  

‘The local laws that protect tenants at the expense of landlords have fueled this phenomenon because we’ve basically said forever it’s the landlord’s fault, not the tenant’s fault if the tenant can’t pay rent. The law is not on your side.

“My advice to anybody who’s a non-professional landlord, don’t let a delinquency slip a day. You can’t change the lease that the tenant signed, but you should avail yourself of any remedy that you have in that lease and don’t cut them an inch of slack,’ Roschelle advises. 

Philadelphia landlord Joseph Foresta sued Airbnb for $170,000 after squatters trashed his home (pictured with the boarded up door), refused to leave and struck him with a baseball bat 

In another example from Philadelphia, a landlord sued Airbnb for $170,000 after squatters trashed his home, refused to leave and struck him with a baseball bat when he tried to get back in. 

Joseph Foresta stated in the lawsuit that the short-term rental app was responsible for the damages and lost income caused by a man who paid for a one-night stay on June 13, 2020, before squatting for three months.  

The landlord claimed he listed the property believing Airbnb ‘thoroughly vetted’ prospective guests, according to the Pennsylvania Record. 

In the lawsuit, filed in April, he alleged he was struck in the head and stomach with a baseball and his life was threatened when he tried to access the property. 

Foresta is seeking $170,000 in lost rental income and repair costs, along with interest, attorney’s fees and other costs incurred by the squatting.