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‘It’s enraging!’ NYC homeowner arrested for locking squatters out of $1M home

March 20, 2024 | | Print Article

A New York City (NYC) property owner was arrested this week for changing the locks on her own $1 million home in Queens.

According to NYC station WABC, property owner Adele Andaloro inherited the home after her parents died and was in the process of selling it when she noticed that someone had changed the locks.

That someone turned out to be squatters who’d moved into the home in February.

“By the time someone does their investigation, their work, and their job, it will be over 30 days and this man will still be in my home,” Andaloro told WABC.

Fast-forward to this week, when Andaloro changed the locks on the home while the squatters were out.

When the squatters returned, they pushed through the front door as if they owned the place and then had the nerve to call the police on Andaloro for being inside her own home.

Watch what happened next:

When the police arrived, they stunningly arrested Andaloro because of a New York law that says “it’s against the law to turn off the utilities, change the locks, and remove the belongings of someone who claims to be a tenant,” according to WABC.

So because the squatters illegally claim to be tenants of HER HOME, Andaloro isn’t allowed to change the locks of HER HOME.

All this happened despite her having the property deed on her. Meanwhile, the squatter claiming he has a lease for the home, Brian Rodriguez had squat.

“When Eyewitness News asked Brian Rodriguez, the man who claims to have a lease, for documentation he provided none,” according to WABC. “Instead, he showed bills for work he claimed he had done to the house. He said he moved into the home a few months ago and signed documents with a realtor but wouldn’t say who that realtor is.”

“You got to go to court and send me to court,” Rodriguez told the station, adding that he’ll only leave “if she pays me my money that I put in the house.”

“Pay me the money and I’ll leave, or send me to court. It’s that simple,” he continued.

Andaloro has for her part filed an eviction notice in landlord-tenant court, but the process is expected to take up to 20 months to complete.

“I’m really fearful that these people are going to get away with stealing my home,” she told WABC.

“It’s horrible — it’s her home,” a neighbor told the New York Post. “I’m glad it’s coming to the forefront, because it’s a disgrace. They can just come and take your house.”

Andaloro could perhaps use the help of Flash Shelton, the founder of the United Handyman Association and SquatterHunters.com.

Speaking with Fox News last month, he explained how he’d removed the two female squatters who’d taken over his mom’s California home last year after she’d put it up for sale following her husband’s death.

“After local law enforcement couldn’t help, Shelton spent days dissecting laws around squatters’ rights,” Fox News reported. “He managed to get rid of the women within a day by drafting a lease agreement with his mother designating him the legal resident of the home, then took over the house when the women stepped out one day and barred them from re-entering.”

“Now he uses his experience to provide squatter removal services for others and has successfully helped several landlords in California reclaim their homes,” according to Fox News.

That said, Shelton recommended that homeowners always seek the help of law enforcement before taking things into their own hands.

“As soon as law enforcement says there’s nothing we can do, then I would say reach out to me or someone like me because there are alternatives besides spending a year in civil court,” he explained.

Cases like that of Andaloro are a dime a dozen these days thanks to “squatter rights” laws pushed by DEMOCRATS, not Republicans.

When Washington State Republicans tried in 2016 to pass legislation cracking down on squatters, for example, Democrats predictably stood in their way, as reported at the time by Spokane station KREM.

Three years later in Pennsylvania, Republicans there tried to do the same thing, only to again be blocked by Democrats.

Vivek Saxena
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