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Squatters terrorize Atlanta neighborhoods, seizing 1,200 homes and even open strip club

February 7, 2024 | | Print Article

Squatters have reportedly commandeered over 1,200 homes in Atlanta that they’re now using to effectively terrorize local residents.

Things are so bad in Atlanta that many “owners offer intruders money to leave and many property managers won’t check on suspect houses alone,” according to Bloomberg.

Matt Urbanski, a local business owner who runs a home cleaning and construction firm, knows this all too well. Last spring, a squatter shot one of his employees in the leg after his employees tried to remove the man’s possessions from a home he didn’t own.

“I’d be terrified in Atlanta to lease out one of my properties,” Urbanski told Bloomberg.

It doesn’t help that local politicians think the solution to the epidemic is to punish corporations and individuals who own “vacant” properties.

The crisis is especially affecting the rental industry, with even big rental giants taking losses because of it, especially because evicting squatters can take half a year or longer due to backlogged courts and overwhelmed police.

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In fact, Tiber Capital Group CEO Simon Frost reportedly recently wrote a note to local authorities begging for their help.

“Unlawful occupants often brandish weapons and threaten neighbors, including children,” the letter reads. “This problem is rapidly growing. We are concerned about the impact that this is having on safety and livability of our local neighborhoods.”

Now imagine how smalltime individuals who are just trying to rent out their property are faring.

“A small individual who would want to use that property to build their long-term wealth and secure their future, it could potentially destroy them,” Urbanski noted.

One local resident told the New York Post they’re afraid to simply go on vacation because squatters might take over.

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“Is this even America anymore? We are homeowners and we can’t even do anything about trespassers?” the resident said.

Thankfully, there have been some slivers of hope, such as when four particularly obnoxious criminal squatters were finally arrested in October, thus putting an end to a nightmare for the home’s neighbors.

“Neighbors [said] the people who lived in the home kept them up at all times of the night, with parties and other non-neighborly activities. … People who live in the Thaxton Reserve community said they’ve lost plenty of sleep the last four months because of the nightmare neighbors at that home,” local station WSB reported at the time.

“A lot of partying. They had an illegal strip club on the weekends,” one neighbor anonymously said said.

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The squatters and their party guests also raced in the streets, left piles of trash everywhere, smoked marijuana, and evidently brought horses — yes, horses — to the home.

“They would get live horses. One day they had live horses,” a neighbor said.

Neighbors complained to the authorities for months, but nothing happened til mid-October, when a SWAT team finally took down the squatters.

How exactly are squatters getting hold of these properties so easily? Partly by exploiting technology.

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“The advent of self-showings allows would-be tenants to request a viewing and receive a code to enter a property, which can go awry when the information falls into the wrong hands,” Bloomberg notes. “And fake lease documents are readily available on the internet.”

“People have figured out how to leverage the technology in such a way that they can get into a house, counterfeit a bogus lease document and then just won’t leave,” National Rental Home Council CEO David Howard said.

The same thing seems to apply to turning on utilities such as Internet, water, and electricity.

“Many internet providers require little proof of residency, [Urbanski] said. Once squatters get a bill for the online account, they can use that to set up water and power service,” Bloomberg notes.

Perhaps the saddest case is when the “squatters” are unwitting squatters. Bloomberg explains that sometimes actual squatters comandeer a home and then rent it out to unsuspecting victims who then become squatters themselves by default.

Vivek Saxena
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