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Note: If you've ever seen Pacific Heights starring Michael Keaton, about the squatter from Hell, you will have seen what happened to people on our street. Case in point, Dan Weibel across the street. Dan and Nancy were original owners of that house as we were ours, so we
had been neighbors for about ten years. They were in their mid-thirties when Nancy died of cancer. This had played out for over a year and they had three boys. Dan took a much needed vacation a few months after Nancy passed away. He was only gone for a day when we saw several junk trucks delivering junk there. But a family of the worst white trash the world has ever seen moved in. When Dan came back after vacation, they had changed the locks and the police told him it was a civil matter that he needed to solve in court. That took six months, but he got it back. They trashed the house and it cost him over $20,000.00 to get it back to condition.
April 6th, 1998
READERS'
OPEN FORUM
Musical Houses
Twice on the street where I live, squatters have broken into homes that were in foreclosure, or where the owners were on vacation, installed their own locks, and began trashing it up as if it were their own. The city comes by and offers them $500.00 to leave. The bank does the same thing. The squatters turn it down knowing that the rent money they will save in the six months it will take the authorities to pry them out is much more than $500.00
Why isn’t this against the law? As far back as I can remember, if you went into a house that didn’t belong to you without permission, you were trespassing. What’s wrong with arresting those who trespass? If they can’t be arrested, why do the rest of us work to pay the mortgage and rent? Why not just let all the houses go into foreclosure, then just walk into the one that suits you?
Joe M. Young Corona
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