Texas homeowners confront squatters, say police won't help
Texas homeowners Yudith Matthews and Abram Mendez discuss their legal battles to evict squatters.
A Texas real estate agent detailed the worst squatter house he has ever encountered in his experience helping homeowners remove unlawful occupants from their property, and says damages would have totaled $150,000.
George Huntoon told Fox News Digital during a phone interview that though the squatters were eventually removed from the property, the house was left unrecognizable. The filthy conditions made the residence unlivable and the damage was so extreme that the house no longer stands.
The squatters had lived in the house for one to two years prior to Huntoon arriving to assist in January 2023. It was not until April 2023 that the squatters were all finally removed from the property.
A Texas real estate agent spoke to Fox News Digital about the worst squatter home he has seen, which would have cost around $150,000 to fix. (George Huntoon)
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Huntoon previously told Fox News Digital in a phone interview that he was brought in by the owner's cousin, as the owner of the property was an elderly woman living in a nursing home.
"This Murrayhill house was just the house of horrors, and it was just unlike anything anyone's ever seen," Huntoon told Fox News Digital.
"Criminal activity was off the charts and the cops would come regularly, probably once a week. It was just drug infested, but for whatever reason, they might arrest someone, and then the person was back out on the street the next day, but they just couldn't get a handle on it," Huntoon added.
At any given time, Huntoon said there were "easily 10 people" in the house, all contributing greatly to the wreckage.
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"It was a rotating cast of characters often, but it was always on average, at any given day that I went over there, it was easily 10 people," Huntoon said.
George Huntoon was going through the court process while also trying to push the squatters out of the home. (George Huntoon)
The house quickly became one that Huntoon described as "not even habitable."
He described rotten food scattered around the property and plumbing barely working. He detailed the walls being turned into a canvas for spray-painting graffiti and piles of stolen junk filling up rooms.
Huntoon visited the house often, trying to get the squatters to leave on their own while simultaneously going through the court process to get them removed.
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His approach to their removal included a detailed cover story that created a sense of trust. He hinted to the squatters that the police were going to come to the residence. Slowly, they started to move out of the home, but Huntoon said there were three or four of them who kept coming back. The remaining squatters were eventually arrested by police.
When squatters live on a property, it not only affects the property owner, but also everyone else living in the neighborhood. This can leave the damage caused to fall on the shoulders of the homeowner, even though they are just trying to regain their rightful residence.
"The city was trying to come down hard on the owner, because they were blaming her for all these people and the mess," Huntoon said. "The neighbors had been complaining, so the city was coming out red tagging her house."
The remaining squatters living on the property were eventually arrested. (George Huntoon)
"Her house was being taken over, so this thing was snowballing out of control," Huntoon added. "So I had to deal with the city to keep telling him, 'Hey, look, I'm here, I'm on your side, but you need to give me some support.' I even had to go to court a few times."
After the squatters were out, Huntoon made plans for the home. He said reconstruction was not on the table due to the massive price tag as a result of the significant damage.
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"Once I got all the people out, we had a big dumpster dropped in the driveway, had the house completely emptied out, so we could actually see everything. As I went through it, I had different contractors come over," Huntoon said. "The cost to fix up this house, to return it to a nice looking, normal, livable home, would have been around $150,000."
The house sold, but since the squatter damage was so extensive, the house did not survive.
"They just bulldozed it," Huntoon said of the current owners. "Now it's just dirt."
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