‘I’d be terrified to rent out my home in Atlanta’: Staggering 1,200 homes in the Georgia city are now occupied by SQUATTERS – with cops taking up to six months to turf them out
Atlanta is facing a squatting crisis as 1,200 homes have been seized and landlords have to clear out unwanted residents themselves or wait months for the police.
The situation has become so dire that some homeowners are offering to pay squatters to get them out of their homes – rather than risk losing months of rent.
One squat in the city of Georgia was even run as an illegal secret strip club and had to be cleared out by an entire FBI SWAT team.
Matt Urbanski, who runs a cleaning company in Atlanta and cleans 40 squatted houses a month, told Bloomberg: “I would be terrified in Atlanta if I rented out one of my properties.
‘The big companies are having a hard time with it. A small individual who wanted to use that asset to build his long-term wealth and secure his future could destroy its potential.”
A squatter with a long criminal history was evicted from a $500,000 Atlanta-area home after moving in while the home’s owner, an Army officer, was on active duty
Photos and videos of the man’s eviction show his personal items, including couches, lamps and other furniture, strewn up and down the driveway of the home.
The trade group National Rental Home Council has now estimated that 1,200 homes are being squatted in the city – more than any other urban area.
Evicting squatters can take more than six months, with backlogs in the courts and overwhelmed police forces.
An Urbanski employee was even shot while trying to evacuate a house after getting into an argument with the squatter.
National Rental Home Council CEO David Howard told DailyMail.com: “Incidents of illegal trespassing in the Atlanta metro area are disproportionately higher than comparable markets across the country.
“The sheer scale and consistency of the practice in terms of how these incidents occur are clearly indicative of some sort of organized criminal effort.”
He added: ‘This is of course primarily a property rights issue, but the impact of this type of activity extends far beyond the concerns of the individual property owner.
“There are serious public safety issues here: Who’s in the house? What happens in the building? What is the risk to others nearby? There is also significant concern about the availability of affordable housing.
Every incident of illegal occupancy means one less home is available for a family in need of high-quality single-family homes.”
In addition to individual homeowners, the squatting crisis is making business difficult for some of the nation’s largest single-family rental companies.
Tiber Capital Group CEO Simon Frost reportedly wrote to local authorities pleading for help: “Unlawful residents often brandish weapons and threaten neighbors, including children.
‘This problem is growing rapidly. We are concerned about the impact this has on the safety and quality of life in our neighborhoods.’
The problem is fueled by rising housing costs in the city, with rents rising 34 percent from pre-pandemic prices to $1,897 per month.
South Fulton City Councilwoman Helen Z. Willis told Bloomberg, “There is a lack of affordable housing and homelessness has increased during the pandemic.”
It has also become easier for squatters to find homes to move into.
Online classifieds and virtual real estate agents can allow squatters to find empty addresses and gain access by setting up fake appointments.
Some people may not even know they are squatters, as scammers can create false advertisements for vacant properties and bogus lease agreements.
Once a squatter gets in, it’s hard to get them out. It can take three months for an eviction court hearing to take place, and another three months for a deputy or marshal to vacate the home.
Strip club squat
Exclusive photos show the property at 4951 Wewatta Street in South Fulton, Atlanta, where four squatters allegedly ran an illegal strip club
A SWAT team arrested the four squatters after neighbors complained about the stench of marijuana, gunshots and live horses on the property
Cupboards are open and in one of them is a black plastic bag wrapped
In October, a house in Atlanta was taken over by squatters who ran an illegal strip club on weekends and kept horses on the property.
The FBI had to intervene and arrested four people who had moved into 4951 Wewatta Street in South Fulton without permission.
The 4,000-square-foot house with five bedrooms and three bathrooms was destroyed by the squatters.
Photos from inside after the FBI cleared the house showed the hallways eerily empty, save for a cartoonish green lizard painted on a wall.
Other walls were covered in dark streaks.
DeAnthony Maddox (left) and Jeremy Wheat (right) were arrested at the scene
Kelvin Hall and Tarahsjay Forde were also arrested
The trash was strewn with a half-full water bottle, a crumpled plastic bag and a bottle of Pink Whitney – the popular lemonade-infused vodka – on top of a railing.
Neighbors said they ran a strip club on weekends, loud parties and car races in the streets.
A neighbor said: ‘They would get live horses. One day they had live horses.”
Four young men – DeAnthony Maddox, Jeremy Wheat, Kelvin Hall and Tarahsjay Forde – were arrested at the scene.
All four were booked into the Fulton County Jail on multiple charges, including several counts of theft by receiving stolen property.
Deployed military house
Last year, deployed Lt. Col. Dahlia Daure said she felt “violated” when she heard a man squatting in her home while she was on active duty.
Daure told local media that Vincent Simon – a man convicted of weapons, drugs and theft – was living in her $500,000 home.
The Army officer had been away from her Ellenwood residence on duty in Chicago – and only found out he had moved in when the house was about to be sold.
‘I felt violated. If I had not served my country, I would have been in my house,” Daure said WSB TV.
The massive 4,300-square-foot estate where Simon is holed up has five beds and five bathrooms, Zillow states, and is valued at around $495,000.
Lt. Col. Dahlia Daure said a man with a lengthy criminal history squatted in her Atlanta-area home while she was on active duty and is refusing to move.
The active duty army officer was told by police that they could not deport Simon and that the matter was being treated as a ‘civil matter’.
‘I want to shoot out the windows, turn off the water tap, cut wires, but that’s not possible. That’s a crime. Law-abiding citizens cannot do that,” she said.
The massive 4,300-square-foot estate has five beds and five bathrooms, Zillow states, and is valued at approximately $495,000.
Before Daure put the house on the market, he rented it out and even spent an estimated $35,000 on renovations.
The squatter initially presented police with a lease that he said showed he paid $19,000 to stay in the property for six months.
During that time, the convicted criminal installed cameras, posted “Beware of Dogs” signs and covered the windows with cardboard.
Daure urged the police to investigate and they discovered that the lease was fake.
Police discovered that the number on the lease did not lead to a real person or real estate agent and Simon was issued a trespasser’s affidavit. He was arrested after police discovered he suspected ecstasy and a firearm, which he is not allowed to do as a convicted felon.