Out-squatted: Handyman stays with squatters — until they leave
LOS ANGELES >> On a winter morning in Woodland Hills, the “Squatter Hunter” slowly approaches a posh two-story home dressed in all black, armed with a Glock 26 pistol, stun gun, pepper spray and baton. His body camera is on. His two-man squad lurks behind him.
They've spent four days in surveillance, learning the habits of the man squatting inside. They've waited for him to leave, but he never does. So they knock on the front door and when the occupant opens it, they barge inside.
Their plan: live with the squatter. Dirty the bathroom. Take the best spot on the couch. Commandeer the TV remote. Blast music. Drink his coffee. Eat his Cheetos.
Out-squat him. And film it all for YouTube.
As the body camera footage shows, the team starts installing Ring cameras throughout the home to document every interaction. The Squatter Hunter, Flash Shelton, hands the man a lease with Shelton's name on it.
“You're an intruder in my house now,” he says.
Shelton explains that the man is there illegally and the team is not going anywhere until he leaves. The squatter was out before they could even share breakfast together.
For homeowners in Southern California and beyond, run-ins with squatters can be a nightmare both emotionally and financially. For the Squatter Hunter, it's just another day on the job.
What started as a viral YouTube video has grown into a one-of-a-kind vigilante-style service, helping homeowners boot trespassers from their property.
His motto: “If they can take a house, I can take a house.”
A new identity
Shelton, a California native, understands what drives some people to squat. He said he grew up practically homeless, “moving every time the rent was due.”
At 16, he started a handyman business and in 2009 he established the United Handyman Association, a trade organization that lobbies for handyman rights. Along the way, Shelton, 56, also worked as a bouncer, where he learned how to handle situations that could turn violent.
“I took the same deescalation courses law enforcement would take,” he said.
Shelton carries a no-nonsense demeanor and sports a thick gray goatee, a San Fernando Valley version of Josh Brolin. On his website, he poses in a black baseball cap emblazoned with the words, “GET OUT.”
His first experience with a squatter was in 2019. Shelton's father died two years prior and his mother moved in with him while they put her Northern California home on the market.
A woman reached out about renting it — offering repairs for free rent, since she had no money — but Shelton declined. But while the home was unoccupied, the woman broke in through the back door and moved in, furniture and all, Shelton said. He started receiving calls from real estate agents planning to show the house to prospective buyers saying they couldn't access it because people were living inside.
He called the local sheriff's department, but according to Shelton, they said they couldn't enter the house since it appeared to be occupied.
Hearing nightmares about the lengthy and arduous process of dragging out an eviction in court, Shelton got creative; he had his mom write up a lease making him the official tenant of the home. That way, he could legally enter the property.
“If they're the squatter, they have rights. So if I become the squatter on a squatter, I should have rights,” he said.
He drove 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 installed Ring cameras throughout the property.
When she returned, he explained 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, in which an entirely different set of rules is in play. But for homeowners who've dealt with an actual squatter, the process of removing them can be arduous 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 published a recap on YouTube titled, “How I removed squatters in less than a day.”
The video went viral, racking up millions of views and thousands of comments. Shelton saw an opportunity.
“I just simplified it. There's so many people asking me why we haven't been doing this all along,” he said. “I was just fighting for my mom in the beginning, but now I've reinvented myself.”
And so, the Squatter Hunter was born.
California's housing crisis
Squatters aren't created in a vacuum. More often than not, they're the product of a brutal California housing market in which rents skyrocket and affordable housing disappears.
But there's a big difference between tenants — even ones who stopped paying rent a long time ago — and squatters.
A tenant is someone who was invited onto a property with consent, said Mark
Martinez, a tenant rights attorney. That consent can be as formal as a written lease or as casual as a verbal agreement. Even if a tenant stops paying rent, they still have protections and landlords have to go through an official eviction process, which can take weeks or months.
In some cases, police cannot immediately remove squatters for a variety of reasons, Martinez said. For example, a squatter could claim the landlord allowed them to live there or produce a fake lease, making the situation more ambiguous.
The Squatter Hunter method
Shelton has to be selective 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 already has 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.
So far, no squatter has taken Shelton to court — to win back 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.
Although every case is different, there's generally an easy way and a hard way to remove a squatter.
The easy way: Wait for the squatter to leave the home and secure possession of the property while they're gone. Change the locks and install security cameras.
“Now, they're fighting to get back in instead of the homeowner fighting to get them out,” he said.
The situations are tense, but he said he stays 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 aggravate a situation that could be handled civilly, and part of that is being nice.
“If I can't get them off the property, I'll move in with them. I walk in, sit on the couch, pour a bowl of cereal and say, `Lucy, I'm home!'”
He hands the squatter a copy of the lease and explains that he's not going anywhere — that he's there to make their living situation miserable and “turn it into a reality show” with cameras everywhere.
Shelton, a single father with five kids, two living at home, doesn't want to hunt squatters forever, but demand has been overwhelming.
The end game is policy change. His GoFundMe advocates for legislation that would expand law enforcement's ability to remove squatters and also make it easier for judges to order squatters to pay restitution.