The Florida State Legislature unanimously moved to allow for the immediate removal of squatters, the parasites who have exploited loopholes in the law to occupy properties against the will of owners, often destroying them.
As is often the case, the Sunshine State is once again well ahead of the northern states when it comes to protecting the rights of individuals and the new legislation allowing police to boot freeloaders should serve as a model for other areas not under the control of Democrats.
“It gives me a real feeling of positive hope that we still have the ability to discuss challenges in our society and work with our legislatures in a bipartisan way,” Florida landlord Patti Peeples, who was banned from her own home after squatters took up residence and refused to go, told News4Jax.
(Video: YouTube: News4JAX0
“It’s just the wild west,” Peeples told News4Jax. “They simply move from one place to another.”
Peeples made headlines last year after a pair of aggressive black lesbians with “15” pit bulls invaded her rental property in Jacksonville, refusing to leave while she was prohibited from setting foot on her own property by a loophole in the law.
Lesbian squatters with ’15’ pit bulls reportedly lay waste to FL rental property, throw feces at owners https://t.co/RQeBKmRNZ6 pic.twitter.com/MnePZNWx4Z
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) April 17, 2023
The squatters were confrontational and according to Peeples, attacked her when she came to check on the property.
“We were driving by at night, and they threw a brick at my car and damaged it, and we had the window partway down, and they threw human feces into the car,” she told News4Jax last April. The squatters were eventually evicted but not before doing tens of thousands of dollars of damage to the dwelling.
“Imagine for a moment that you leave from your day of serving the citizens of Florida as a senator and you return to your home,” she told the Florida Senate Criminal Justice Committee last month. “But when you walk in, there are strangers sitting on your sofa, watching your TV, eating your food.”
“You ask who they are and what they are doing, and they tell you that they have rented this house and present you with a lease,” Peeples said, referring to the bogus lease that the lesbians claimed gave them the right to occupy the house.
One handyman who has turned into a squatter hunter said that squatter laws need to be tightened up to allow landlords to easily kick out those occupying their property illegally, noting that in Atlanta, the National Rental Home Council says that around 1,200 homes have been invaded by squatters.
“If we were to criminalize it, that would enable us to send in the National Guard to sweep that whole neighborhood and get those 1,200 houses clear,” Flash Shelton told Fox News.
The Florida bill reads: “Property Rights; Authorizing property owners or their authorized agents to request assistance from the sheriff from where the property is located for the immediate removal of unauthorized occupants from a residential dwelling under certain conditions; authorizing a sheriff to arrest an unauthorized occupant for legal cause; providing criminal penalties for any person who knowingly and willfully presents a false document purporting to be a valid lease agreement, deed, or other instrument conveying real property rights, etc.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the legislation which would go into effect on July 1.
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