After finally evicting a contractor-turned-squatter from their new home, two Texas homeowners said law enforcement made them feel like criminals throughout their two-month ordeal.
Yudith Matthews and Abram Mendez, who bought the San Antonio home to accommodate their growing family, said they were “relieved” that the contractor had finally cleared out his last belongings. On Wednesday evening, their family gathered to secure and cordon off their new home to ensure squatters – or other potential intruders – didn’t sneak inside.
Until this week’s long-shot victory, they said they felt “helpless” amid a legal system that “takes advantage of landlords…and the working class” at the expense of “entitled” squatters – even, they said, when their safety was threatened.
“If I tried to protect my home, I would be arrested,” Matthews told Fox News Digital. “Your heart is about to come out of your chest. You’re worried, you’re not sleeping. What else is going to happen? How much damage is it going to do?”
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Aside from “unloading some materials,” Matthews and Mendez told Fox News Digital that the handyman never completed the work he was hired to do.
The married couple said they incurred about $17,000 in damages, utilities and court costs, wiping out the “last real dollars” from their account. The squatter allegedly destroyed new plumbing work in their garage, barbecued indoors with a propane tank, doused the mahogany cabinets with a bleach mixture, smoked and urinated inside and broke doors and trim throughout the home to facilitate legal entry and exit.
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The couple said they fell in love with the seven-bedroom, three-bathroom home in a quiet neighborhood and purchased it in November. They couldn’t understand why anyone would “destroy” him unnecessarily.
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“Out of spite? To someone you don’t even know? Are you taking out the wrath of the world on one person? (Is it) because they don’t need to pay? They’re It just goes away and she’s not responsible,” Matthews said. said.
Their squatter allegedly purchased a blender to leave it running all day during his unwanted stay and intentionally turned off their new freezer, leaving broken meat and eggs to spoil inside. Matthews and Mendez were ordered to restore electricity and water to the house and pay fines after, they say, the squatter and his accomplice stole the water and electricity.
Even obtaining a Writ of Possession – an official document that a landlord posts on their door to inform a tenant or squatter that they must leave within 24 hours or risk being forcibly evicted by the policy – costs $300 more.
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“All they care about is the bail money, all they care about is the bail money, all they care about is the fees – they would ‘feed’ us to death ” Mendez, a father of three, told Fox News Digital. “As long as the squatter isn’t living on the street and moving into someone’s house, that’s going to generate revenue – lawyer fees, other things that will boost the local economy. But all of that is paid for by a Taxpayer owner who has worked hard, has little income or some equity where the best case scenario is to flip it.
Had the contractor paid fees and appealed the judge’s decision, they said, their ordeal could have persisted beyond this week. But by “a stroke of luck,” they said, he was late for a court hearing Tuesday and narrowly missed the window.
The contractor, a man in his 40s who the couple said suffered from gout, had asked to stay on a couch inside the house. When they realized he had amassed an alarming number of belongings inside, they called San Antonio police.
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He had not stayed in the house for the 30 days required to be considered a squatter under Texas homestead law when police were first called to the property on Feb. 29, but the couple claims agents made no effort to verify his opposing story, or even verify his identity.
“(The squatter) said, ‘No, I live here,’ and the police immediately responded, ‘You’re the resident, you have the right to live here,'” Mendez recalled. “The police have come so many times, we caught him in the act, we might have filmed it, but the police go away and say it’s a civil matter.”
“It’s a cop-out,” Mendez said. “The police are giving these people a right that they’re not entitled to…they don’t care because they know the lieutenant is going to cover for them, they don’t want to write a report.”
The couple said they filed a complaint with San Antonio police after an encounter in which an officer allegedly raised his voice, saying he “didn’t have time to deal with this.”
“You feel so disappointed that you don’t even bother to call the police when they treat you like you’re a criminal,” Matthews said.
Previously, footage of the couple confronting their squatter as he entered the house through a boarded-up window was broadcast on “FOX & Friends.” After this meeting, the couple were barred from entering the house.
From that point on, the legal process and surveying the property became a full-time job.
“My husband would run around the house, (we) would take turns supervising the property,” Matthews said. “(The squatter) has taken away our family time, so many events, so many fun things we do with the kids on the weekends…it’s very unfair. Our kids are really stressed.”
After serving seven years as a Navy intelligence officer, many of them on active duty in Asia, Afghanistan and Iraq, Mendez is fortunate to be retired. He couldn’t have handled this nightmare any other way, he said.
“How families where mom and dad have to work – what a nightmare,” Matthews remarked. “Imagine a family working alone from 9 to 5 without any support and dealing with this kind of thing.”
During one of dozens of visits San Antonio police made to the property, according to records provided by the department, the couple claimed the squatter brandished a knife at them. Matthews and Mendez claim that when they arrived, police “threw the knife in the corner” and “told him he had a right” to the weapon as a tenant of the home.
Matthews claims he shone high-powered flashlights in her face and even threatened to spray her with bleach during one of their many confrontations.
“We are fighting, risking our lives because we are not getting any protection from the police, the government or anyone,” she told Fox News Digital. “We’ve saved enough money, we’re in our 40s, we’re focusing on our home and now someone is stealing decades of our hard-earned money for their laziness. That’s it, they’re lazy.”
SAPD Officer Ricardo Guzman told Fox News Digital that law enforcement “has its hands tied” in these situations.
“The biggest problem with these squatters is that the hardest thing for us is the squatters’ rights. Once they move in and they have a property, even if it’s an abandoned building is their property,” he told Fox News Digital. “There are laws that prevent us from seizing their property and throwing it away. That’s where it becomes a civil matter, the landlord will have to go through eviction proceedings.”
Although the worst is over for the couple, they are still in the process of obtaining a restraining order against their squatter and taking inventory of the damage and stolen items, they said.
“The law didn’t work for us,” Mendez said. “It finally worked for us – but after a month of what bills, what losses. (Now) it’s more elbow grease, more sanding, more painting – time eaten up by a squatter who didn’t nothing to lose because the police gave him permission by saying, ‘You have the right to stay there.'”
Fox News Digital was unable to reach the squatter, or the attorney who represented him in previous criminal cases, for comment.
Original article source: Texas Landlords Who Finally Evicted Their Squatters Are ‘Treated Like Criminals’
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