17 July 2023 , 14:33
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A group of squatters were turfed out a $1million home but left the house teeming with bugs, authorities say.
Police in Florida managed to get the 10 people - seven men, two women and a child- out of the Fort Lauderdale home, which one law enforcement official described as "totally damaged."
"It's bug infested," Mike Fisten, an investigator for the Broward Property Appraiser's office Crimes Against Property team, told CBS Miami. "
He added: "The walls are damaged. The flooring is damaged. The windows are damaged. The whole area is totally damaged."
The Broward County Sheriff’s Office evicted the group including the child from the home on Seabreeze Boulevard after it was found they were there illegally.
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Green slime can be seen growing on the pool cover (Broward County Property Appraiser)Florida is the state with the third highest population of homeless people with with 25,959 counted in 2022, according to Homeless Voice.
The eviction of this group was the culmination of an investigation into title fraud over the property.
Last October Tyrone Jones was arrested. He allegedly created a fake person to become executor of the Fort Lauderdale property, allowing him to illegally take ownership of the $1 million property.
Jones allegedly carried out similar fraud with 14 other properties in the area, worth a combined $14 million.
"He actually had rented it out to other people that didn't own the property," Broward County Property Appraiser Marty Kiar told CBS Miami.
A picture shared by police (Broward County Property Appraiser)
Cops complained about the state the property was left in (Broward County Property Appraiser)Mr Fisten added that the reported squatters "know the system," and "know how to stay there until the courts throw them out."
Alarms were raised after one of the squatters broke into a nearby neighbours house on February 27, 2022
"My wife screaming, someone's in our room, and my dog barking and chasing him out," the neighbour, who did not share his identity, told CBS Miami.
Police arrested Kevin Bosley over the break in but it wasn't revealed the suspect lived in a stolen home until about a year later.
Bosley was released on an ankle monitor and returned to the home on Seabreeze Boulevard.
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He was still wearing the ankle monitor on Tuesday when authorities removed the ten squatters.
In the past four years house prices in Florida have sky-rocketed by more than 61 per cent.
Data from the Florida Housing Coalition shows that more than 53 percent of renters have to pay 30 per cent or more of their monthly income on rent and utility expenses.
Mr Kiar told reporters his office has been reviewing squatting incidents for about a year, and has had 185 cases.
"We only started about a year ago, we've had about 185 cases, and every case is a little bit different. And in every case, what we do evolves a little bit. Our underlying goal at the end of the day is just to help protect the community and to hold people accountable," he said.
The ten squatters left without incident on tuesday. They gathered their belongings and walked off as the locks on the property were changed.
Due to Bosley's ankle monitor, he's required to alert his parole officer to the situation or could face arrest for violating the terms of his parole, CBS Miami reported.