theb laze com

'Professional squatter' takes up residence in home of deceased Chicago woman, but city won't help family oust him

Cortney Weil

3–4 minutes

A group of siblings has been fighting for months to have a "professional squatter" removed from their late mother's Chicago home, and they claim that the city has done almost nothing to help them.

Darthula Young recently told reporters with CBS Chicago that her mother passed away last year. Before her death, her mother, whose name was not given in reports, spent more than three decades living in the same duplex in the Chatham neighborhood on the city's south side.

After the woman's death, Young and her siblings legally inherited the home, which had been in their family for generations. However, in September, Young said she received a call about a shooting at the home. When she arrived to investigate, she discovered that her key no longer worked because the locks had been changed.

Young soon discovered who had changed them: Takito Murray. According to Young, Murray is a "professional squatter" with a long history of arrests for drug and weapons charges. Murray had been wounded during the shooting at the residence, and after he was discharged from the hospital, Murray told Young and the police that "that he now lived there, that he had rights," Young recalled.

Police encouraged Young to go through the courts to have Murray evicted. She hired an attorney, but evicting squatters in cities like Chicago and New York City can take up to eight or nine months.

When confronted by a CBS Chicago reporter, Murray admitted that he had been living in a residence which belongs to Young and her siblings. "That was their building," Murray said. However, he claimed that he had made arrangements to rent the home from one of the siblings, though he did not furnish any proof of the arrangement.

Murray also told the reporter that he has been actively looking for another place to live, but Young doesn't believe him.

"Every time I've been there, he tells me he's leaving in two weeks," she said. "He's leaving in two weeks. He just cannot find a place."

While the legal process continues, Young has attempted to have the utilities shut off, but since the home still has a resident living in it, the city has refused, leaving Young with a $1,300 water bill. Murray has also never repaired a window broken during the shooting which wounded him last September, and the grounds appear to be poorly maintained, with trash and other debris scattered throughout the front yard.

"It's been a nightmare," Young stated.

When the Rat comes out,

the Cat needs to go in,

according to Steve Growaset.

Property owners need to grow a backbone and find ways to persuade squatters to leave. The recent posts we had regarding "Squatting on the squatters" come to mind, and if that doesn't work, there's usually a group of bikers down at the local bar who might be for hire...

As much as that fantasy sounds appealing, I think the solution is to just sell the property to someone who specializes in dealing with these situations, take that money, and invest elsewhere. Amateurs are outclassed when it comes to pro squatters, and since they can burn the property down at any time it's a huge liability risk to be associated with it in any way. Or just deed the property "as is" to someone to clear your hands of it. If these cities don't care enough about property owners' rights to tackle the problems of squatters, then let the squatters take over the city, and let the cities fall apart.

They made their bed. They get to lie in it.

Here is what I think made a difference. One of my buildings is in a small city that had a squatter which I found hard to remove. I found that other landlords also had this problem in the city.

I think the city felt it wasn't worth their time and effort and it was really the problem for the assumed rich landlords which of course, always have a lot of funds to take care of any problems.

So I sent letters to the local newspaper and to the TV station to talk about this problem where it cost so much for landlords that we had to raise the rents of good tenants and it was really there for those good tenants that ends up having to pay for these non payers..

I contacted a landlord who has much better TV presence than I do and loved TV exposure so they interviewed him after a meeting which in which we rehearsed a bit of what was the best things to try to say.

So he really laid it on talking about how they cost so much to lose rents with trying to pay for property tax, up keep, snow removal,and in many cases mortages and the many things we have to pay for case, that he had to raise rents and it looks like in the very near future he was going to have to do that again and do it substantially. That this affects many landlords in the area because we get no help from the city or other legal entities because they think it's only a landlord problem.

Apparently the city received enough letters and calls from angry tenants to start making changes.

These politicians think that since there's so many more tenants than landlords, that that is where the votes are until they hear perhaps those same tenants now are going to rebel against them.

I can't tell you for sure that this worked to change the city's attitude, but we found that they were much more willing to influence the police to get rid of trespassers at least in this small city.

I watched a video on removing a squatter recently. Let me say it's not something I would do for safety reasons...but here's what he did... (I should note that for some reason they had a key and did not change the locks...which is something that you probably would not find in most situations...and he did not explain how they got the key).

Situation: His mom was the rightful owner of the house...she had moved into a nursing home a few months back, so the house was unoccupied. Squatters got inside. He got calls from neighbors about it. So he...

1) Drafted a lease agreement whereby his mom was renting the place to him, and had it signed by both he and his mom.

2) Scoped out the place so he knew how many people were there, what vehicles they had, etc.

3) Waited in a nearby parking lot for them to leave one day

4) Entered the house with his key. Immediately installed a Ring camera system on outside and inside.

5) When they came back, he made sure his car was in the driveway. He called the police and said someone was trying to break into his house.

6) When the police arrived he showed them the lease and said he doesn't know how all this stuff got in his house but it wasn't his. He told the police that he'd allow the people until midnight to get all the stuff out, and after that anything left in the house he'd consider his...and he had cameras set up and would be watching the property and would consider anyone trying to get in as breaking and entering and would call the police immediately...and he said this right in front of the people.

7) Within an hour they had two trucks there and were removing all their stuff.

Squatters broke into a vacant unit and took up residency. My partners didn't want to use MY "foolish plans" and took matter into their own hands. Partners filed a police report. A month later the squatters were still there. So the partners demanded the City attorney do something. He did, told my partners to get the hell out of his office.

Next my partners contacted an eviction attorney. After paying the attorney $4,000 in fee's, my partners with the attorney's help paid relocation money to the squatter to get out. That was $21,000 in relocation money and $3,000 for a professional movers to transfer their junk to another squatter location.

The next time a squatter got anywhere near to a partnership property, my partners listed and agreed to put my plans into action. THE PLANS COST:

Hire a private armed security firm to patrol a property 3 times a day, for $1,200 per month. Once a day drops down to $500 per month. If they or someone reports an illegal trespasser, I will be notified. Then I will meet my security firm at my squatted rental unit. I will confirm that this squatters are NOT my tenants. The security firm will warn the squatter to leave within 5 minutes or get arrested!

If talk and discussion does not provide the necessary solution then creative outside the box thinking must be used.

If you use iCore locks from Landlord Locks, changing the cylinder with the control key takes 30 seconds. If the locks have been changed or you don't use the LL system, my buddy Gary the locksmith can open locks, change cylinders and cut you 4 keys from the back of his Jeep in less than 15 minutes.

Surely the squatter has to go out for groceries sometime. With enough "friends" everything could be on the curb in less than an hour. One of your friends could be your new tenant with keys and a lease to the place in case the police are called. A quick call to the power company puts the power in your friends name. Pop a sign in the front yard, "No Trespassing"

What's the squatter going to do? Call the cops? Your friend has the lease and power is in his name. His crap is on the street. Now he is trespassing and subject to arrest.

2 years ago I found had a squatter at a place I was working on, I went to my nearby place and got several bedframes to screw over the windows, then screwed the doors shut, he escaped by way of a 2nd floor window and hung on the power wires moving over above shrubbery to jump - the wires were old rubber type - very durable. A month later someone took all the fence fabric off the poles - gee I wonder who?

Needed to pay more attention. Place was a duplex, could not the neighbor have kept them apprised? When the guy was in the hospital recovering from the gunshot would have been the perfect time to retake control. Missed opportunity.