Plague of Squatters Invade Homes Across America

This needs to be dealt with. Property rights are not negotiable.

A Female Army officer on active duty has her home invaded by a squatter.

The police tell her it’s a '“civil matter.” The squatter claims to have a ‘lease,’ and so now she has to serve him with eviction papers. And the law says “he has a legal right to respond and have his case heard in front of a judge,” and that the “eviction process could take “weeks or months.”

“He's not a tenant. He's a squatter,” she said.

“I want to go shoot out the windows, turn off the water, cut wires, but I can't. That's a crime. Law-abiding citizens can't do that.”

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An older couple buy a home for their retirement in Queens, NY. It has a squatter in it.

“We're looking to hopefully retire and most of all provide for my son Alex, who has Down syndrome,” said Susana, noting that all she can think about is: “When is this guy going to come out?”

If the state of New York has its way—never:

The Landas have taken Flores, aged 32, to landlord-tenant court to try and get him evicted — but five hearings in civil court later and the couple are yet to achieve that goal.

Five? And why is this a civil matter to begin with? How is this not criminal?

Under New York state law, squatters are classified as tenants with rights after living in a property for 30 days.

Thirty days? That isn’t an accident. New York clearly WANTS people to squat in other people’s homes.

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This is becoming epidemic:

These are people that know exactly what they're doing, and they're stealing other people's most valuable capital…'I've heard from a lot of people. This has caused them to file bankruptcy. They're mentally harmed by it. […]

The situation has become so dire in the city that homeowners have offered to pay off squatters to get them out of their homes, rather than risk losing months of rent. 

One squat in the Georgia city was even being run as illegal secret strip club and had to be cleared out by an entire FBI swat team.

Oh, I get it—property rights violations are a civil matter, not a criminal matter…until people are getting naked. Then law enforcement will act.

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Illegals are giving instructions to their fellows on how to do squat in people’s homes.

Unsurprisingly, squatters are also murdering people:

Vitels was killed after she traveled to New York City from Spain to get the apartment ready to be occupied a family friend. It had been vacant for months after the death of her mother. 

Police sources say Vitels didn't know when she went to the apartment that two squatters had been living there. When she arrived, she could be seen on surveillance video coming and going from the apartment. 

Police believe the two suspects returned to the apartment after Vitels arrived, surprised and killed her by beating her to death. 

Naturally, governments are siding with squatters and arresting homeowners for doing what needs to be done.

In case you are unaware, that government practice is called anarcho-tyranny, which we might define as roughly this:

The intentional creation and application of laws, rules, and edicts designed to reward and protect criminals, subject the law-abiding to conditions of increasing chaos, and punish the law-abiding for any act of resistance thereto.

So, how SHOULD this be dealt with?

I am not going to bother addressing communists, socialists, and leftists. Anti-propertarianism is baked into those cakes, and the gulf is too wide.

Rather, I would like to address people who have bridged that gulf and are walking into the bright, sunny lands of natural law. I am so glad we are here in this bright, sunny land together.

However, if you profess a belief in natural law, then you need to know that…

Property rights are a non-negotiable aspect of natural law.

Full stop.

If you are tempted—by compassion or casuistry—to think otherwise, you need to check your premises.

• In order for that forkful of food you are about to put in your mouth to be useful to you, it must be yours.

• In order for that tool you made using unowned natural resources—a broom, a fishing spear, a flute—to be useful to you, it must be yours.

• In order for that little farm to be useful to you, it has to be your farm. It cannot be everyone’s farm.

And these things ARE yours, so long as you did not use force to acquire them from another. You may homestead unowned places and things. You may mix your labor with the things of this world. You may freely trade for property by means of voluntary transactions with others.

These things become yours. Exclusively.

• They cannot belong to a small group of overlords—that is a violation of your rights as a human person.

• They cannot belong everyone in the world—that is a violation, and it is quite literally impossible and unworkable.

Your property is yours and yours alone. It is an extension of your self-ownership. Any attempt to take your peacefully acquired property from you is an act of violence against you, and such acts are morally impermissible.

There are no exceptions.

There is one proviso, however. It is called the Lockean Proviso, and it says that this right is absolute…so long as there is “enough and as good” remaining for others to acquire as property.

This proviso is not referring to people’s vacation homes or second homes or third homes. As long as a person has not bought up all the homes, such that there are none left for others to buy or rent, it is not a violation of the Proviso. The Proviso does not say that people who are too lazy to work to buy or rent a place can squat in someone else’s home.

The Proviso also does not refer to large land holdings. As long as a person has not bought up every square inch of arable land in the world, leaving only rocks and desert, it is not a violation of the Proviso.¹

I have a small piece of land in a Western state. I have not even set foot on it since the 90s.

It is not the last piece of land in the world, the state, or the local area.

It has ponderosa pines on it. This is not the last stand of ponderosa pines in the world.

If I were to drill a really deep, expensive well, I would eventually hit water. This is not the last water in the world.

It does not matter what my reasons are for having this land. It is none of anyone’s business. It is mine. Full stop.

No one in the world may own it or use it without trading me something that I am willing to accept in exchange for its ownership or use. Full stop.

No one in the world may squat on it. Doing so is an act of violence against me. It does not matter that I have not been there in 30 years. My property is an extension of my self-ownership and my labor. It is mine. Full freaking stop.

Squatting, trespassing, using it without my permission—these things are an attack. On me. On my rights. On my self-ownership. On my very being as a human person. Attacks may be repelled by whatever amount of protective force is necessary to respond to and end the attack.

If you are a naturally compassionate person, I commend you. But you must understand that violations of property rights are violence.

Owning property is not a violent act. Even if there are poor people who have less, owning property is still not a violent act.

It may not feel fair that there are people in the world who have more than they need and others who do not have enough. But so long as the people who have more than they need did not take it by force, it is theirs.

ANY act that seeks to take their property from them—even if motivated by compassion—is an act of violence.

If your natural compassion motivates you to want to help people who are less fortunate, great! But we must find a way that does not systematize the seizure of the property of people who have more, just because you feel bad for the people who have less. Doing so is not a kind act. Doing so instantiates violence in human affairs.

There will never be peace in the world so long as we build violence into the system, even for compassionate reasons. We have to find another way.

These squatters are not sympathetic characters. They are not poor people seeking a refuge from the storm. Even if they were, their squatting would still be an act of violence. But they’re not. They are criminal grifters who need to be removed the INSTANT it is determined that they do not own the property.

No fake leases. No months of delays. No civil proceedings. They need to be dragged out by force if they refuse to go by choice.

The law of nature is very clear on this. Even bears, butterflies, timber wolves, and toddlers understand it.

The only people who do not understand it are in our various governments. Most of the laws they are imposing to “protect” squatters’ “rights” are clear violations of natural law…and are thus not real laws at all. They are just tyranny wrapping itself in the cloak of legitimacy.

And if they are not going to deal with squatters as they ought to be dealt with, then they need to get out of the way and let property owners do what needs to be done.

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1. In certain circumstances, you might be able to apply the Proviso to a single island. This is an interesting discussion for another time.