Jack Flemming | Los Angeles Times (TNS)
In Woodland Hills, the “Squatter Hunter” approaches a fancy two-story home with a Glock 26 pistol, stun gun, pepper spray, and baton, along with a body camera and a two-man team.
After days of surveillance, they knock on the front door and barge in when the occupant answers.
Their plan is to live with the squatter, make a mess, take over the couch, control the TV, play loud music, consume his coffee, and eat his Cheetos.
They want to outlast the squatter and film the experience for YouTube.
The team installs Ring cameras to record all interactions, and the Squatter Hunter gives the man a lease with his name on it.
He tells the man he's now an intruder and won't leave until the squatter does, who then leaves before they can share breakfast.
Shelton explains the man is there illegally and that they won't leave until he does.
Encounters with squatters can be a nightmare for homeowners in Southern California and beyond, but for the Squatter Hunter, it's just another day on the job.
A viral YouTube video has turned into a unique vigilante service for helping homeowners remove trespassers.
His motto: “If they can take a house, I can take a house.”
A new identity
Shelton, who grew up almost homeless, understands why people squat. He started a handyman business at 16 and founded the United Handyman Association in 2009, along with working as a bouncer.
In his website, he's seen wearing a black cap that says, “GET OUT.” He encountered his first squatter in 2019 after someone broke into his mother's unoccupied home and started living there.He called the sheriff, but they couldn't enter because it seemed to be occupied.
Shelton received deescalation training similar to law enforcement while working as a bouncer.
Shelton has a serious demeanor and sports a thick gray goatee, similar to Josh Brolin. On his websiteHe poses in a black baseball cap with the words, “GET OUT.”
His first encounter with a squatter was in 2019, when someone broke into his mother's home after it was put up for sale.
A woman offered repairs for free rent, but when Shelton declined, she broke in and started living there.
He sought help from the sheriff, but they couldn't enter because it seemed to be occupied.
Shelton heard scary stories about the long and difficult process of carrying out an eviction in court. So, he had a clever idea. He got his mom to write a lease making him the official tenant of the home. This way, he could legally go into the property.
He said, “If they’re the squatter, they have rights. So if I become the squatter on a squatter, I should have rights.”
He traveled for 10 hours from the San Fernando Valley and slept in his Jeep outside the home, waiting for her to leave in the morning. When she did, he went inside and set up Ring cameras throughout the property.
When she came back, he told her that he was the new tenant and that she needed to move all her stuff out. Since he was now in possession of the property, he said if she returned, he would call the police for trespassing.
She left by the end of the day.
Squatting isn’t common. Most housing disputes are between landlords and tenants, with a whole different set of rules. But for homeowners who’ve dealt with an actual squatter, the process of removing them can be difficult and costly, taking weeks or months and costing tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
But Shelton made it look easy. He recorded the entire encounter and posted a summary on YouTube titled, “How I removed squatters in less than a day.”
The video became very popular, getting millions of views and thousands of comments. Shelton saw an opportunity.
He said, “I just made it simpler. There are so many people asking me why we haven’t been doing this all along. I was just fighting for my mom in the beginning, but now I’ve reinvented myself.”
And so, the Squatter Hunter was born.
Keith Moret, a commercial real estate agent with Lyon Stahl, first heard of Shelton when he appeared on a TV news segment shortly after his YouTube video went viral. Since then, he’s been sharing the story in real estate circles.
Moret said, “I’m not surprised he’s getting attention. So many people are frustrated with the legal system. Attorneys are expensive, and the deck feels stacked against housing providers.”
He said squatting has become more of a problem as homelessness increases, and he takes precautions when listing buildings with vacant units. On a recent sale in East Hollywood, he hired someone to board up all the windows while the deal was in escrow.
Shelton has since started a website, squatterhunters.com, where he offers his services. Over the last year he’s conducted hundreds of Zoom consultations, talking homeowners through their squatter problems and coaching them on potential strategies.
Business is booming. He consults for free but requires clients to donate $150 to a GoFundMe advocating for squatter law change. So far, he’s raised nearly $9,000.
He said, “Just the hope itself helps people. People are tired of hearing that there’s nothing they can do about someone stealing their home from them.”
For clients with bigger problems, he offers to remove the squatter personally, either by himself or with a team he assembles. Over the last few months, he said he has handled about 10 jobs in California and Nevada. The minimum price for a job is around $5,000. There is no maximum.
Sometimes it takes three to four hours. Sometimes it takes weeks.
It can be expensive, but Shelton said he's met homeowners who have already invested $100,000 in trying to evict a squatter using the legal system and have not made any progress.
“I don’t reveal my methods. I just advise them to make me a leaseholder, and I take care of the rest,” he said.
The housing problem in California
Squatters aren't created in isolation. Most of the time, they are the result of a harsh California housing market in which rental prices increase significantly and affordable housing disappears.
In L.A., the average rent is $2,750, much higher than the national average of $2,045, according to Zillow. Rising property values, especially since the pandemic, have contributed to a widening gap in wealth in Southern California, leaving many renters in dire financial situations.
However, there's a significant difference between tenants— even those who stopped paying rent a long time ago— and squatters.
A tenant is someone who was given permission to be on a property, as explained by Mark Martinez, a lawyer specializing in tenant rights. This permission can be as formal as a written lease or as informal as a verbal agreement. Even if a tenant stops paying rent, they still have legal protections, and landlords must go through the formal process of eviction, which can take weeks or even months.
For instance, Elizabeth Hirschhorn, the woman who resided in a luxury Airbnb in Brentwood for 570 days without paying rent, was technically a tenant. Despite not paying rent, she initially had an agreement to move in.
According to Martinez, a squatter essentially trespasses: someone who enters a property without permission and stays there.
Besides adverse possession, a rarely seen process in which a person can obtain a property after openly living there and paying property taxes for five years, there are no true “squatter’s rights,” Martinez said. Trespassing is illegal, and squatters cannot legally live in a home.
However, they are considered innocent until proven guilty, and homeowners cannot simply enter and force them out of the home, as they could face potential legal action for harassment or assault.
In certain situations, according to Martinez, the police may not be able to immediately remove squatters for various reasons. For example, a squatter could claim that the landlord permitted them to live there or produce a fake lease, making the situation more ambiguous.
Moret, the real estate agent, mentioned that the police once refused to remove a squatter living under the carport outside one of his buildings because he did not have a “No Trespassing” sign displayed. Another time, the police said they were unable to act because residents had no evidence that the squatter had committed a crime.
Shelton stated that many of the homeowners he advises assert that the police cannot remove squatters because there is no proof of when the squatter entered the home and how long they have been there.
The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Both Shelton and Martinez recommended that the first step if you encounter a squatter in your home is to contact the police. Martinez suggested that if the police are unable to remove them, seek the help of an attorney.
He suggested not using Shelton’s services.
“It creates a situation for violence,” Martinez said. “Even if there’s no legal risk, when you’re entering somebody’s living space, there’s always potential for physical conflict.”
Martinez recognizes that the process of removing a tenant can take a long time because there are many obstacles that slow down landlords from evicting quickly, and some legal cases can last a year or more. But he says that's necessary — especially in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, where rental prices have gone up rapidly.
“Renters are consistently exploited, and they need rights,” he said. “Landlords want real justice. They want squatters out right away. But that needs to be balanced with due process and the ability to defend yourself in court.”
Shelton mentioned that working with a lawyer to go through the court system for an eviction will take months and cost a lot in legal fees and lost rent.
“If you discover a squatter and have no idea why they’re in your home, and then you file legal documents stating that they’re in your home, you’re giving them rights as a tenant. But I can attempt to get them out before anyone knows they’re there,” he said.
“Before you contact a lawyer, contact me.”
The Squatter Hunter method
Shelton has to be careful with the cases he takes.
First, he only deals with squatters, never tenants, and only takes on cases where nothing has been filed in court so that there’s no proof that the squatter is living in the home. If a judge has already given them tenant rights, his hands are tied on what he’s legally allowed to do.
Then, he visits the local law enforcement office and explains what he’s doing. That way, if there’s a hostile situation, police officers know his specific plans and intentions.
After that, he works with the homeowner to write up a lease declaring him the tenant and records himself signing it. If he ever goes to court, he’ll have proof that the home belongs to him.
The fact that he’s doing the work, and not the homeowner, is part of Shelton’s legal calculus. According to Martinez, California law prohibits“self-help evictions,” in which landlords try to remove a squatter themselves.
It’s one of four things he lists on his website for landlords to avoid when trying to evict a tenant: no self-help evictions, no retaliation against the tenant, no discrimination and no harassment. He added that a homeowner who hires Shelton might have vicarious liability; they didn’t kick the squatter out themselves, but someone they hired did.
No squatter has taken Shelton to court so far — to regain possession of the home, they’d have to prove that they entered it legally. But the homeowner’s potential “vicarious liability” is one of the reasons he doesn’t identify them publicly or tell them about his plans; the less they know the better if a dispute ever goes to court.
Once the lease is signed, he turns into a private investigator, researching everything he can about the squatter: name, age, background check, criminal history, anything he can use when he finally confronts them. He interviews neighbors to learn the squatter’s habits and watches the house for days to see when they leave and return.
Shelton sometimes works alone, and when he does need assistance, he has a strict process for choosing people to join an operation.
“Most men I talk to seem tough after drinking and want to forcefully remove a squatter from the home. I need someone who can stay quiet and composed,” he said.
If he brings in someone who brings out a weapon and harms someone, he could potentially be responsible, he said.
Though each case is unique, there’s generally a simple way and a difficult way to remove a squatter.
The simple way: Wait for the squatter to leave the home, then take possession of the property while they’re away. Change the locks and install security cameras.
“Now, they’re struggling to get back in rather than the homeowner struggling to get them out,” he said.
The situations are tense, but he said he remains calm. The deescalation training helps.
“I know these people didn’t wake up with the intention to ruin my day. Squatters aren’t attacking me or my family. They’re just taking advantage of a system,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is worsen a situation that could be handled peacefully, and part of that is being kind.”
The difficult way: living with the squatter.
“If I can’t get them off the property, I’ll move in with them,” he said. “I walk in, sit on the couch, pour a bowl of cereal and say, ‘Lucy, I’m home!’”
He gives the squatter a copy of the lease and explains that he’s not leaving — that he’s there to make their living situation unpleasant and “turn it into a reality show” with cameras everywhere.
They usually leave by the end of the day.
To convince squatters to leave, he offers them a deal: If they leave calmly, he’ll keep their identity a secret.
Most squatters agree. For those who don’t, he uploads their picture to his website and their interaction to YouTube and Instagram. He’s currently creating a database of confirmed squatters so landlords can avoid renting to them in the future.
A single YouTube video gives the details of a confrontation with Adam Fleischman, the former chief executive of the restaurant chain Umami Burger. In the video, Fleischman claims he had a verbal agreement to live in a Hollywood Hills home, giving him rights as a tenant, but that he didn’t have to pay rent.
In another, Shelton secretly approaches a woman entering a Culver City home through a window.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” he asks.
She doesn’t take the bait, instead responding with a barrage of curses.
Shelton, a single father with five kids, two living at home, doesn’t want to pursue squatters forever, but demand has been overwhelming.
The end goal is policy change. His GoFundMe supports legislation that would broaden law enforcement’s ability to remove squatters and also make it easier for judges to order squatters to pay compensation.
“The entire system needs to change,” he said. “I want to have my name on a bill.”
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