Ways you can keep your neighborhood safe from squatters

Neighbors in North Seattle fought for more than a year to get squatters out of a house on Burke Avenue.

"Nobody wants this kind of nightmare in their neighborhood!" said Steve Warren.

He added, "[Neighbors] were frightened for their children, frightened for their families, they were frightened for health reasons. There was a huge infestation of rats that were patrolling the house."

Warren and other homeowners had to pool their own money to hire an attorney for the eviction process to get the squatters out last fall.

"Pay attention to who your neighbors are, because you don’t know what could happen. You just don't know what's going on over there," said Evelyn Jarosz, who lives across the street from the house where the squatters stayed.

Now they're warning other neighbors across Seattle that unless they know who the owner of the house is and act quickly, they could be stuck with squatters.

"Our legal system has become so complicated and so protective of people's rights that it, the pendulum has swung way on the other side," said Warren.

He added, "If we had not gotten together as a strong neighborhood and gotten these people out of this, the city of Seattle would never done it because they don’t have the laws that allow squatters to be removed from the property."

The city is monitoring at least 89 vacant properties at risk, and they're in communities across Seattle.

"Those that remain secure and closed to the weather are not in violation and not monitored by DPD. We only check on those if someone complains about the property.  Vacant buildings are placed on monitoring when they don't resolve the violations noted on the Vacant Building Notice of Violation," said Wendy Shark, spokesperson for Seattle's Department of Planning and Development.

Property attorney Christopher Cutting says neighbors can take control of the problem if they act quickly.

Because after 72 hours of living in a home undetected, squatters can abuse a law meant to protect legitimate renters.

"That doesn't mean that they have a legal right to live at the property. What it means is that the police can't go in there and summarily throw them out on just the say-so of the landlord," Cutting said. "Really, the intent of this is to keep overly aggressive landlords or anyone overly aggressive from taking advantage of law and order protection to deprive someone else of their rights."

After the 72 hours, the homeowner or bank has to go through an eviction process to throw squatters out.

Criminals now send themselves mail, show moving receipts and even stage furniture to prove they've lived in the home for 72 hours.

"Your life, your property values, everything's at risk if you don't handle it," said Warren.

Warren says neighbors should look for the warning signs that a squatter has moved in.

"A house is not being taken care of; garbage accumulating; many, many people coming and going in the property; any kind of uptick of violence in the neighborhood. If someone's moving into it and you don't know who they are, it's really wise to go over and introduce yourself to those people, find out who they are, find out if they're tenants," said Warren.

The city says homeowners should also make sure that any entry point where a squatter can get into a vacant property should be boarded up.

Identifying the homeowner is also critical, because after 72 hours, only the owner of a vacant house has the right to evict someone.

"You gotta figure out who the owner is first, but band together -- you need everybody," said Jarosz.

"If a property owner can keep an eye on a property and know regularly what's going on and spot a potential squatter as soon as they break in or get on the property, they will have a lot easier time getting the police to help them or getting other aspects of the law to assist them," said Cutting.

Unfortunately it's often difficult to find the owner of a vacant property, or they don't want to put in the effort to evict people from a home they no longer care about.

But since we first exposed the problem on Burke Avenue and followed the issue until the squatters were removed, the city has implemented what's called the Vacant Building Trespass program.

Now property owners can sign a contract with the city attorney's office and it will do the work to get squatters out.

"Where they basically allow SPD to enforce the trespassing laws on their behalf and they have authority," said Brendan Brophy, an attorney for the City of Seattle.

Evelyn Jarosz says you have to know the law to make the rules work for you.

"You don’t want to live with that feeling of uncertainty and danger," said Jarosz.

"A lot of squatters are good at taking advantage of laws meant to protect law-abiding tenants and using them to at least advantage<

Cox Media Group