Transcription
You are an anti-squatting activist. What's happening in your field? I have a case. You had somebody that came in and either posed as a caregiver or was a caregiver and decided not to do any caregiving. She gained access to an 88-year-old woman's home. The elderly woman asked to have her removed. So she reaches out to the service that provided her and was told, "We fired her. However, we can't help you get her out of your house."
My guest today is Flash Shelton, an anti-squatting activist who's an expert in the field of squatting in California. Today, he'll share with us the loopholes in the law that allow squatters in California to come and take over homes. He will also tell us how he deals with squatters and how he gets them out. The truth is, tenants have rights. The lines between tenants and squatters right now, they're blurred. Right now, squatters are taking advantage of the fact that California is a very tenant-friendly state.
I'm I. Welcome to California Insider, Flash. It's great to have you on. Welcome.
Thanks for having me. You are an anti-squatting activist, correct? We want to hear from you. What's happening in your field? Is there a lot of squatting in California now?
To answer that bluntly, basically, there is a lot of squatters in California. Um, how they become squatters, uh, you know, changes case by case. Uh, some squatters are squatters intentionally, and they, and they've been squatting for years, and they figured out a way to use the system to their benefit. Um, and you have new squatters that are figuring out that they can just stop paying rent. If they sometimes will sign a lease with the intention to pay one month, get into a house, and stop paying rent. So there are various types of squatters. I find that it's kind of evolving. And squatting is almost like, you know, it's been around for so many years, but, you know, with the new generation of squatters, I find young people that are taking over houses and turning them into party houses and charging admission. There are people that, you know, from Airbnb that become squatters and then turn around and make income off of housing, um, through Airbnb. So there are a lot of types of squatters, um, you know, that we could discuss. And and there's different changes in laws that could prevent this.
Is it getting worse from your experience, or is it the same?
I think it's always been a problem. I think that we are hearing more about it, you know, just with the age of social media and everything else. Uh, you know, everything that we hear, we automatically think it's something new. But the truth is, it seems like it's worse because of the media and because of the attention. So there's more attention on it now.
These days, there's a lot more attention. But most cases, I'm running into people that have been squatting for years, and elderly people that have been living with squatters for multiple years because they don't have the resources or the family to help them. So, yeah, I mean, it's squatters that have been, you know, squatting for several years, moving in with elderly people.
Can you explain? You have seen some examples of that. How he? Yeah.
You know, I have the perfect example of that, and I have a case that is in Culver City, California. And, uh, I have, you know, during the process, I've met with social services, law enforcement, attorneys, trying to figure out what is going on and and how it happened. But the the bottom line is, you had somebody that came in and either posed as a caregiver or was a caregiver and decided not to do any caregiving. And, uh, she gained access to an 88-year-old woman's home. And after, you know, just occupying space and not, um, not caregiving, the elderly woman asked to have her removed. So she reaches out to the service that provided her and was told, "We fired her. However, we can't help you get her out of your house."
Wow. So, you know, in California and many other states, they are considered, you know, they live in caregivers. In many cases, live with the homeowner. So they are considered a tenant, and you have to go through a process to get them out. Even though they don't have a lease, they don't have an actual living agreement to live there, you still have to, they're still treated like a tenant or squatter, and there's a process to get them out.
And what's that process? Is it a full eviction process, and how long does it take?
Yeah, typically it would require someone, you know, prior to me, it would require someone hiring a, um, you know, an attorney that specializes in eviction and, you know, go through and start the eviction process. And that could take, I mean, it could take, if if they don't fight, you know, it could be as early as 90 days. But if they hire an attorney or they have, they know anything about their rights and how long they can push it and the different things that they can say to a judge to prolong it, they will fight to extend it another 60 days, another 90 days. You know, most cases I'm hearing it's six, eight months, and sometimes up to a year. And, um, you pay an attorney for a year, you're spending a lot of money. These elderly people that are victims, they don't have the resources. You know, there's a misconception that if you own a home, you have money. And, you know, people that own a home will argue that just because you own a home, you own a mortgage, you don't own a bank account.
Now, based on what you were saying, essentially, somebody just breaking in can can stay and become a? Is that? Is that possible?
If break? Yes. So, so my, you know, how I got started was my father passed away. We moved my mom out of her house in a remote location in Northern California, moved her in with me, and we listed the house to sell. Next thing I know, I hear that someone had broken into the back door and moved in. I called the sheriff. Sheriff said, "There's nothing we can do. There's furniture in the house. It appears you have a squatter. It's a civil matter." I decided to learn all about squatting. This was in 2019. And I go up there, and I have seven people, two women and five men, in my mom's house. And, you know, they broke in the back door. The officer acknowledged he physically saw the broken back door, couldn't do anything. It would have made a difference if I had cameras and alarm so that I knew who broke in and when. But the fact that they were already in the house with furniture made it a civil matter. So, yes, the bottom line is they can, and it does happen. All they have to do is gain entrance, show that they live there. And if you don't bring furniture, if they bring furniture, then it means that they live there. If they don't catch them, if you don't catch them going in, you can't prove that they broke in and when they did.
I have a situation from Hollywood Hills. Adam Fleshman, my Adam Fleshman story, right? He's the founder of Umami Burger. He basically he responded to a, um, to a woman that had listed rooms for rent. He shows up with a backpack. He goes in the house, he looks at the room, and he says, "I like it. I'll take it." And she says, "Well, you know, I'll let you know." And he's like, "No, you don't get it. I'm not leaving." She says, "Well, I'll call the police." He says, "Okay." By the time the police show up, he unloads his backpack, hangs his clothes in the closet, and that's all the officer offered needed to say. "I'm sorry, we can't do anything. It's a civil matter."
Wow. And how did you deal with your parents' house? Were you able to? Did you go through the civil process?
No, I, I, you know, I had read horror stories. And, you know, there was my mom needed to move on. We were still mourning my father's passing. My mom could not afford a long civil battle. She couldn't afford to hire an attorney and go through that process. So I, as the son, felt like it was my job to protect her, to take care of her, and to get the squatters out. So I asked her to write me a lease because I figured if they have a fake lease, the last thing I wanted to do is drive, you know, it was like a 10, 12-hour drive. I didn't want to drive up there and have them show a lease and then I'm told to go home. So I told my mom that I was going to go do work on the house. And, uh, I wanted her to write me a lease so that I had a legal right to be on the property. I couldn't tell her about the squatters because she was already emotionally distraught at the time. So I went up there with a lease in hand. I, you know, sat out, watched them, waited for them to leave. And, um, you know, I had learned about the laws and and realized in my research that their rights kind of became rights when the civil process starts and when the judge says they are squatters and they have rights. So I figured that if I could become their squatter and switch places with them, that I would assume those rights. So I waited for them to leave. As soon as they left the driveway, I went into the house, secured the back door, put up cameras, set up an alarm system. And then when they arrived back, I basically told them, you know, I have possession of the house now. It's my house. And I gave them an option. They could leave with or without their furniture. I told them it was secure, and if they tried to break back in the house, I would prosecute. They took my deal. They got their stuff out in less than a day, and I got my mom's house back.
Wow. And did they know? They were not shocked at all. They, they knew what they were doing, right?
They were surprised that I was there. Um, they didn't know, you know, they assumed who I was. I don't know. I feel like they just kind of didn't know at that point. They had nothing to fight. You know, they, they were out of the house. And, you know, a lot of squatters will never leave a premises. They will leave someone there all the time because they know that if they lose possession of the house, they lose most of their rights.
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So how long was the house empty in your example?
It was empty for, um, about eight months. So they had some time to know.
It is, is it what about other cases? Is it what if you leave your house for a weekend? Is that, can that happen?
So I have a story, um, to share that is on one of my, you know, one of my videos on on Outside the Box with Flash on YouTube, uh, that a family, they go on vacation, right? Husband, wife, and two daughters. They go on, I think it was a Disney tour. They went on, like, to Disney, to Disneyland in Florida. And they're gone two weeks. They go on a cruise, right? They come back, and they enter the home, walk in the home, and there's someone sleeping on their couch. They ride away, rush their kids. He rushes his kids and his wife outside in the driveway, calls law enforcement. The officer shows up, goes in the house. The person on the couch says, "I have a lease." The officer comes back out and says, "I'm sorry, but he claims he has a lease to this property." The homeowner says, "That's ridiculous. This is our house. He can't have a lease." And the officer says, "Well, look, it appears then you have a squatter. He says the only thing I can do now is inform you of his rights." Could not let them go back in the home. They had to find a place to live, continue to pay their mortgage, continue to pay the electricity and the water, all the utilities. It took them over a year and $138,000 later to get their home back. And that was because they were gone on vacation for two weeks.
Why did it have to pay the electricity and water and those utilities when they're not really there?
Yeah, you know, in in California, as well as, you know, many other states, um, it is illegal to turn the power off, the water off, turn off any utilities on a squatter because a squatter, when as long as they have possession, they're considered tenants. So there's a blurred line in California between tenant rights and squatter rights. And, um, you know, and that that's the thing that makes it so confusing. So sometimes a homeowner will get in trouble because they will think of them as a criminal. They will think of them as, "They're a squatter, they're not my tenant." And then they'll turn off the utilities. I warn people against turning off utilities. Not only is it against the law, but if you turn off the utilities on a squatter, it gives them the option to turn the utilities on in their name. So I would say it's better to continue to pay the utilities for them than to lose your house. Because now they have the utilities in your name, in their name.
And how would you lose your house if they have the utilities?
They will have more proof. They'll have more proof that they live there. That just allows them to establish more rights, taking you longer. So, you know, if you don't have the resources to continue to fight, there are homeowners that unfortunately are walking away from their homes because they can't afford to fight the squatter anymore. They can't afford to pay their mortgage anymore, to pay the mortgage, the utilities, the insurance, all of that for a squatter. They're weighing it and saying, "Okay, what's my home worth? What's my equity? How much money do I have to put into this?" And when that's all exhausted, because those squatters have an attorney whose main job and only job is to extend the process until you can't afford it anymore. And at that point, they're going to try to get you money out of you. They're literally going to a homeowner and say, "Pay us $20,000, and I'll get my squatter out."
Do you have any examples of this and any stories that this has happened to one of your, somebody you know?
Yeah, I, I have, um, I don't have a specific story of somebody that's worked with me that's lost their home. That has not happened. Um, these are stories of people that have shared testimonials with me, that have commented on my YouTube and talked about their process and saying to me, "I wish I would have met you a year ago. Wish I would have met you three years ago." You know, there, there's stories that are just heartbreaking when you hear these things. You know, people talking about how a squatter took advantage of their elderly mom before she passed away, and then they lost the house because after she passed away, there was already a squatter that had set up, you know, they had already set it up to get the house. You know, the, the, the story that I shared earlier with the caregiver, she was lining everything up to take the house when the 88-year-old woman passed away. She had taken all of the documents for the house. She had taken everything. She was signing things. She was, she had taken over her bank accounts. She withdrew all of her money. It was said that she had $130,000 in her bank, and the old lady had no money, no resources, couldn't do anything. I had to go in. We had to raise money on GoFundMe, and I had to go in and do things for free for her because she couldn't afford it.
And how did you deal with that?
So we ended up, you know, in one of my videos, you see me. I, I call her "Crazy Squatter Caught in the Dark." And I, she was climbing in and out of a window. And, you know, with her, it ended up having to go because she refused to leave. She was living in, she was literally barricaded into a bedroom. We removed her power, we removed her bathroom, we removed everything. And this woman didn't care about her lifestyle because she was determined to get that house. When the old lady passed away, with her, it took civil process, and it took social services getting involved, and eventually, um, law enforcement got involved. And, um, you know, and they're building a case, a criminal case against her as well, because, you know, she stole items and there's, you know, and items were, um, you know, removed from the home. So there was a lot more involved than just a squatter situation.
Now, what are the laws that allow this? Can you explain to us how, how it works?
There is no actual squatter law or squatter right. And people out of California will say, "Oh, of course, California, you know, it's got, it's got, you know, squatters have rights." But the truth is, tenants have rights. And, and I think that's also a misconception from tenants. A lot of tenants are against what I'm doing because they don't understand that if I get the laws changed, it's not going to affect tenant rights. What I want to do is clear the the lines between tenants and squatters. Right now, they're blurred. Right now, squatters are taking advantage of the fact that California is is a very tenant-friendly state. So tenants, for example, have to be served process. You have to go to civil court. They do not have to leave until a judge tells them, "This is the date you have to leave." A tenant is allowed to, you know, to defend themselves. They're allowed to produce evidence of why they shouldn't be evicted. They've been paying rent, they had a lease, they had a legal contract, which good things for tenants, which are good things for these to protect. Exactly. A squatter can come up with a fake lease, or even in California, just say they have a lease because, you know, they can say, "Well, sometimes people have verbal leases." Okay? And, um, you know, so that gives them in the law's eyes. And so a police officer that comes, officer, a police officer that comes out and responds to a homeowner calling about a squatter, a squatter says, "I live here," says, "I have a lease," "I have a verbal lease," "I have a whatever." Right? They just have to create some sort of doubt. That officer, in California, is not allowed to differentiate. They're, they're not allowed to. So once they are told that they live there, then it's a civil matter because that's what they're trained to say. So being that squatters are taking tenant rights, instead of there being an absolute law saying that you have to pay rent to be a tenant, okay, and you have to have a real lease, you have to have a real lease. Maybe a lease should be notarized, and you're not allowed to break in. Yeah.
So how did you gain entrance? You know, there, there needs to be a clear law that says you have to, you know, even something that would protect a, a homeowner from somebody that signs a lease with the intent to become a squatter. There are a lot of tenant squatters that literally go through the process, fill out a lease, pay a first month, and then never make another payment again, and they've now gained every single right that a tenant has. We're covering California issues. As you know, if you want us to cover the stories that are impacting your day-to-day life in California, reach out to me at camac@californiainsider.com.
So they can stay there for another year? Yeah, or few months. Yeah, it could be, you know, and who knows, maybe it's, you know, four or five months before they even, you know, before the process even starts.
Now, who are these people? Uh, the characters you see. Does it have to do with people that are homeless or face poverty, or is it just, just people that are?
What I see mostly, and when we're talking squatters, when I mention the word squatter, they are, by definition, they are not homeless. Okay? And from, from what I've seen, by character, they are not homeless. Homeless people, as I've said in one of my videos, have more pride than squatters. Homeless people will live in a park, they will live on the beach, they will live in a, you know, a cardboard box, in a tent, right? They will live on the street before they will break into your home. Now, I'm not saying no squatter is homeless. What I'm saying is that most squatters that I run across, they are entitled. They take advantage of a system. They can sleep at night knowing that they were doing harm to others. They are narcissistic. They are, you know, you can watch a couple of my videos where I've literally done an intervention, and you can hear their personality, and they consider themselves a victim, and that society owes them. Homeless people, when I go out and I talk to them, you know what? They are just so thankful for whatever they get. And some people don't even consider themselves homeless. You know, I've had homeless people tell me, "I'm not homeless, I'm just living off the grid." So, you know, homeless, there's, we've got mental health stuff, we've got drug stuff, we got, you know, homeless is just a completely different category. And I think classifying a homeless person as a squatter is an insult to them. I think that, you know, let's just separate the two, and let's treat squatters like squatters, and let's help homeless the way they need to be helped.
And these squatters, are they, um, is there any characteristics that people have to watch out for them? Is it, is it usually single individuals? Is it families? Is it all sorts of people? What, what should people watch out for?
That's the hard part is that most victims feel like they should have noticed something, but you're just not going to know. Unfortunately, with tenant laws, you know, prior landlords really are not, it's just like prior, like, you know, employers. They're not allowed to say, they're not allowed to tell you, "Well, they stopped paying rent for six months." They're not allowed to save those things. So you have to just make sure that you screen them properly before you do any kind of leasing. Um, you know, make sure that you do your due diligence and, you know, do background screenings and do anything that you possibly can to find out. And, um, you know, I'm putting together a list where you'll be able to go to squatterhunters.com, go into the search bar, type a name, see a picture, a location, and hopefully, in the future, you know, I will help you figure out if the person you are going to rent to is a, um, a squatter or not.
You know, one of the things that I, I want to mention here today is that, um, you know, for those of you who think that what I'm doing is, um, you know, kicking needy people out on the street, I, you know, I want to let you know that, um, I have a heart for homeless. My family and I were homeless when when I was a kid. And, um, when I run across a squatter that is homeless, I try to help them. I offer them services. I do everything that I can to help them. And I completely switch gears. One of my latest videos was in, um, Los Feliz, California, where I was told it was a squatter. And as I was doing my video, as I was walking around the property, I realized it was a homeless person that was living in this trailer. I did everything I could to help her. I switched gears. I completely, and I, I videoed it so that in the beginning of the video, you think I'm dealing with a squatter, and then I talk to you and tell you how I have to do things different for a homeless person. So check that video out if you, if you're wondering about it. But, you know, my family was homeless, so I have a heart for homeless people. And anything I can do to help them, I do. It's the squatter that I'm talking about. It's a squatter, the career squatter, the squatter that intentionally harms others. Those are the ones that are not safe. When I'm around, I'm going to do everything I can to get your home back and get those squatters out where they belong.
Have you had any times when you did this, you actually, so essentially, you, you do what they do to the property, right? They come, they break in, they come in and they take it. You go and break in and you take it back, right? Have you ever had a situation where it was unsafe for you?
Well, I mean, it's, it's always unsafe. I have to treat it like it's unsafe every time. So I have to be prepared. I try to gather as much information as I possibly can on them. We do surveillance for days, and we check out their routines. I, you know, it's a lot safer for me if I can switch places with them. And when we confront them, have them on the outside of the house so that if they do have anything in the house that can, you know, harm us or anything, guns or anything like that, that's inside the house, hopefully. Um, but, you know, I have to treat every situation, um, that it's like it's risky. And, um, if there's anything that I'm unsure about or I don't know who these squatters are, um, I make sure that I have, you know, I have, I'm partnered with law enforcement. I, you know, one of the things that I do is I go down to the department, I meet with the department heads, you know, we talk about what I'm doing. I give them a list of my procedures so that, you know, when I notify dispatch when I'm on the premises, so when the police are called, they'll show up and they'll assist. The other thing that, you know, I make sure of is in many cases, I will have law enforcement come and do a sweep first and figure out who they are. So, you know, I can authorize an unwarranted search as a leaseholder for a property. So if I feel like there's something illegal happening in those properties, you know, many times people will call me, me or or they'll email me and say, you know, "My squatters are in there, and they're dealing drugs out of my house," or they're doing this. You know, I can utilize law enforcement to go in and check out the house, find out who they are, and find out if there's any, you're a tenant because I'm a tenant. But as a landlord, the landlord cannot do that. A landlord cannot authorize a search of a rental property for one reason. A landlord is never presumed the tenant. And that's another reason why the landlords don't have the rights, the landlord doesn't have the rights compared to a tenant. So a landlord, because, you know, people buy houses and then they never live in them, that's why a landlord homeowner will never be presumed the tenant.
Now, does it happen in different kinds of neighborhoods or is it across the board? If I was going to be a squatter, I would be picking the best house, right? The best house in the best neighborhood. I'd be driving by, I'd be sending mail to an address hoping that I can get some mail with my name on it. I'd be going to those neighborhoods that are great, right? Big houses, nice houses. So I see squatters in, you know, I've dealt with squatters in Beverly Hills, Hollywood Hills. I have one in Lake View Terrace right now, which is a very nice neighborhood. I have in East LA. I have one right now. I have one in South LA, Saugus, Valley. I have one, you know, Sacramento, some areas up there aren't so good, and then there's some areas that are are pretty nice. So it really, it really varies. And I can't say that it's one demographic. It's, you know, there's not one race. It's not white or black or Mexican. It's not, you know, it's not, has nothing to do with that. It's, it's just if you have an entitled mentality and you believe that you shouldn't have to work and you shouldn't have to pay rent, that's what it is. And, you know, it's just every neighborhood. And, um, we hear, I think on the media, the media, you know, there's in Brentwood, another place, right? The media is seems to be talking about the Brentwood case, the Beverly Hills case, the Hollywood case, the, the bigger, richer neighborhoods. But I'm here to tell you that I've got squatters in not-so-rich neighborhoods. You know, those squatters deserve the attention as well, and that's what I plan to do. So in my exposing squatters, you know, I'm exposing. I'm going to be putting out and tell letting you know where they are, who they are, what their names are, and their faces, and I will be exposing them.
You mentioned that they might send mail to your address with their name. Can you explain that?
Yeah, so I have, I do have on on my YouTube channel, I do have some prevention videos to tell you how to prepare, you know, to prevent yourself from from having squatters. And one of them is having a locking mailbox, having a mailbox that any, that not everyone has access to. Because it could be as easy as them starting to send mail to the address and then finding one time that you're not home and they get to the mail first, they pull out things with their name on the mail, right? They keep it with them, and now they break into your home when you're on vacation. All they needed was mail to show law enforcement that they live there.
So, so they just need to show their address written in an envelope that was mailed?
Yeah. Yeah. I had, um, I had a situation unfortunately in Canoga Park, California, where we, we did the lockout, we took over the unit. It was an apartment. And, um, everything was great. As protocol, everything worked out perfectly. And then after we were off the scene, the squatters ended up calling law enforcement. And the officer, and this was, you know, later, the supervisor said they, they shouldn't have done this. But in this particular incident, they allowed the squatters to break back into the unit simply because she was able to pull a piece of mail out of her purse and show that she was living there.
Wow. How do we fix this?
You know, the only real way to fix this, I would say the first step would be to, um, to prevent. The first thing you need to do as a homeowner is, you know, put up cameras, get an alarm system, um, you know, make sure that your house is secure. Make sure that you can document when they enter. If you can document the moment that they enter your house, you will never have a squatter because you will be able to call law enforcement immediately, and they would not have established squatter rights. That's number one.
How long does it take for them to set up? If, if they come in, break in, in a few hours, they can set up, or is it long?
Well, that's the thing. They all they're doing is they're planning perception. Anything that they can do to have a responding officer think that they've been there a while is enough. Okay? That's enough for the officer to say, "I'm sorry, it's a get to it." They can go in with a, with, you know, if they're planning to go into a house to take it over, they're walking in with duffel bags, they're walking in with a backpack, they're walking in with stuff to make it look like they're living there. All they have to do is is take over a bedroom, put stuff in the closet. So, you know, these are things that you can do to protect, protect. That's number one. The second thing is changing laws. Now, changing laws, we know because other laws, you know, just because you change a law, just because you make a law, doesn't mean that people won't figure out a way around it. But if squatters think that they are going to spend jail time, and it's going to cost them money, and they're going to spend a year in jail for squatting, it will prevent a lot of squatters. It'll prevent some squatters from doing it in the first place because right now, these squatters are doing it because there's no restitution, there's no penalty, there's no crime, there's no consequences. Right? It doesn't even go on their record. It doesn't even go on their record. Now, I am able to, there is an eviction by default. Okay? So what I'm working, I'm working on right now, having an attorney start every time I do a removal, put an eviction on these squatters' record. Okay? So all these little things, I'm learning as I go as well, just like everybody. But, but yeah, there's no consequence. So right now, the squatters have nothing to lose. Right? They can damage, they can destroy your house, $30, $40,000 damage, but you cannot get a dime from them. Okay? That's how they're working right now. That's why it's worth it for them to try. Okay? But if we can change the laws to where squatting is actually a criminal offense instead of a civil offense, it's going to prevent squatting. Is it going to prevent all of them? No, they're going to figure out how they're going to try to do certain things, you know, I have. But the risk will be a lot higher, right? The risk will be a lot higher. So some of them are going to think twice, right? So, you know, changing laws and making a clear distinction between squatter and tenant, giving tenants all the rights that they deserve, but making that threshold higher, making it be like, for example, you know, um, getting notarized leases. You know, there's no, a verbal lease nowadays shouldn't even be a thing. And the reason do that, right? And because bottom line is, if they tell an officer, "Well, we have a verbal lease," the officer should be able to ask them, "Okay, do you have any text messages between the owner? Do you have any emails between the owner? Do you have any proof of payment? Do you have an acknowledgment? Do you have a text, 'Hey, my my sink is dripping, my my faucet dripping, you know, can you come fix it?' Do you have any friendly text messages between you and the owner?" They should have to prove that stuff. Currently, an officer can't even ask those questions. Wow. Okay. So, you know, making it to where there has to be a lease, a notarized lease would be a a smart, would be a good idea. A lease should be treated like a contract, okay? Get it notarized, make sure that all parties fulfill their, you know, their part of the agreement, and they're paying rent. So I think if we stiffen it up and make it to where if you provide a fake lease, it's a criminal offense on top of that. Consequences. Consequences. If you enter a home and, you know, and you're not, you know, you didn't enter that home legally, there's already supposed to be consequences. But right now, it's blurred. So if you break into a house and the officer goes into get you, breaking and entry, and you say, "Oh, no, officer, take the handcuffs off because I live here." What now? It's not a criminal offense. Doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I was blown away the first time I was told that, and it caused me to stand up, open up, uh, the internet, look up everything I can, learn everything I can, and defend my mom and be a good son. You know, some people don't think that way and can't do that for themselves. So I did it. But, you know, people, you know, but I'll tell you what, it doesn't matter who you are, none of this makes sense.
You do this full-time now? Right? This has become kind of a career?
Sammy, I still, so I run the United Handyman Association. It's a trade association for handyman businesses, which is nationwide. So we do background screening and we certify handyman businesses, so that, you know, that's been my career job. The squatter stuff, yeah, I've been very busy with it. I, I do Zooms, so every morning I start with doing Zoom consultations. And, um, you know, a couple weeks out of the month, I'm traveling doing squatter removals.
Flash, do you have any other thoughts for our audience?
First of all, I'd like to say that you shouldn't do it on your own. It is dangerous. Um, as a homeowner, not only are you prevented by law to do certain things on your own, you can't rent from yourself. You have to have at least an agreement. Yeah, you can't rent from yourself. And using me, the benefit that I bring is the fact that I do have the recognition and the publicity and law enforcement behind me makes it a lot safer for me. But as soon as you find out you have an intruder, a squatter, call law enforcement. But when they tell you that, uh, there's nothing they can do and it's a civil matter, before you call your attorney, just get a hold of Squatter Hunters. Let us do an assessment, let us do a consultation, and figure out what your options are. But don't do it for yourself. Um, it's, you know, it's property. It's not worth risking your life.
Squatting has been something I think that has been going on forever. Squatting, the squatting laws actually started in the 1800s, and it was based on property. It was non-designated land by government. It was land that people were traveling and they were settlers going, and it was, you could squat on. Someone would sit on a land, they would make a home for the winter, and then they would leave, and someone else would squat on that land and choose if they wanted to stay or go. That's that's squatting in America. That's how it started. But in the modern day, I remember as a kid, now, you know, my during part of my life, we were we were homeless, right? And we were, and we would move. And, you know, I would go into, I was, I was in several schools, I mean, more than a dozen schools between kindergarten and fifth grade. I used to joke, people joke when they're uncomfortable, and I used to joke and just say, "Ah, we moved every time the rent was due." But the truth is, I grew up hearing even back then that you could stop paying rent and you could live for free for six months with no consequence before they could get you out. So it was just a matter of time before people started figuring that out and going, "Oh, well, then I can just live for free for six months. I can move to the next thing, live free for the six months." Well, now they're living free for six months, eight months, a year, and it's become something that we're hearing about now. I don't know if I played a part in that. I know that my first video, you know, got a lot of attention, obviously, the news stuff. But, you know, if I did play a part in it and I'm getting awareness for this and changing the laws, then, you know, I'm, I'm extremely happy about that and appreciate all the support that I've been given. Um, and, um, you know, I just want to say that, uh, I was just a good son doing something for my mom is how this started. And now I feel like, you know, my my life has become about doing something for, you know, for the homeowner, something for the little guy, something just, you know, fighting the bully off. And and that's what my life has become. So the only thing that I ask you guys is to just figure out something that you can do good and try to figure out how you can help the world and how tomorrow will be a better day because of you today.
Flash Shelton with the Squatter Hunters. It was great to have you in California Insider. Awesome.
Thank you for having me.
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