An Alabama real estate agent who has shown hundreds of homes recently encountered something he’d never encountered in his entire real estate career: a squatter was living in the home he was showing.
Courtney Hartsfield, a real estate agent with Tyler Hughes Realty Group, a subsidiary of Madison, Alabama-based Horizon Realty, was showing a home to an out-of-state client on May 16 when she had a shocking encounter with a man living in what was supposed to be a vacant house.
She arrived at the property about 15 minutes before her client but “immediately” sensed something was wrong.
A real estate agent in Alabama found himself in a first-of-its-kind situation where he found squatters in a home he was showing a client. (iStock)
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“The listing may say if the property is vacant, so we have the flexibility to show the property at any time,” Hartsfield told Fox News Digital in a phone interview. “Usually there’s a lockbox on the front door, but with this entry order we were instructed to leave the front door unlocked.”
Hartsfield said those instructions alone are enough to raise eyebrows: She has never shown anyone a home where the front door was unlocked.
Before Hartsfield arrived, there were a few things that made him feel a bit uneasy about showing the property, including the strange entrance. As a safety precaution, Hartsfield usually shows people around the house with someone, such as a brother or father, but that day he was alone.
“Everything was weird that day from the start. I was with people I’d never met, I was in a county I don’t live in and I didn’t have anyone to ride with, so I was on high alert that day. I was prepared for anything to happen,” Hartsfield said.
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When Hartsfield arrived at the home, he followed instructions to the front door of the house, but to his surprise, it was locked.
When she called the real estate agent’s number, she was connected to an answering machine, something she also found unusual.
Ms Hartsfield said the company was managing contact with a number of real estate agents and would pass on information to them about the locked doors, telling them to wait for further instructions.
When Hartsfield arrived at the home, he quickly discovered the front door was locked and he couldn’t get in. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Then a couple of minutes later I got a text from an unanswered number that said ‘try the side door’ and I went to the side door and the whole handle had disintegrated. It looked like it had been ripped out from the side of the door,” Hartsfield recalled.
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“I barely pushed the door and it creaked open and I just thought, ‘I’m not going to walk into this house through the side by myself’ and I knew right away something was wrong,” Hartsfield said.
Hartsfield waited for his clients to arrive and showed them inside the house, where he quickly realized the house was not empty.
“As soon as I walked into the kitchen, not only did I see all the pots and pans and stuff, but the first thing I smelled was food. Something had been cooked in the last few days. It was a really strong smell,” Hartsfield said, pointing out crushed Starbucks double shot cans scattered around.
Hartsfield said she and her client entered the home and repeatedly introduced themselves. After several minutes of calling out to each other, a man cleared his throat loudly from another room, and Hartsfield and her client slowly exited the home.
At this point, they came face to face with the man living in the home for the first time, who ran out the front door, yelling, “What are you doing here? What do you want?”
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Ms Hartsfield described the man as being in his late 30s and said he appeared “disheveled” when he came out of the house, was “extremely delusional” and “sweating”.
“Personally, I didn’t want to go into the house, especially if he wouldn’t leave the property, but then again, I have people that come in eight hours, all night,” Hartsfield explained, adding that the home had been a first choice for her clients before this incident.
So they walked around the house with the man inside and continued to observe more oddities.
“There were three bedrooms. Two of them had beautiful furniture. The beds were made. They were completely untouched. [what] “It looked like a young woman’s boutique clothing. A lot of the clothes I saw had tags on them,” Hartsfield said.
“There were two bathrooms. One had been nicely renovated and he was really excited to show it to us. It was in horrible condition. He hadn’t skimped on it or tried to tidy it up,” Hartsfield explained. “The third bedroom had piles of what were probably senior citizens’ papers and memorabilia and photos and stuff. And a lot of it looked really messy, like maybe things had been thrown out. Someone had dug through those things or whatever.”
With the man still inside, Hartsfield reluctantly continued to show the house to her client, but noticed that many rooms, including the bathroom, were in disarray. (iStock)
The performance lasted a total of 15 minutes, and Hartsfield encountered the man one last time toward the end of the tour.
“It had this amazing wall of windows, it was like an enclosed sunroom, and it was just so amazing, and I wanted to save the best for last,” Hartsfield said, “but I didn’t see him again until we got in that room.” [were] I looked in the bedroom, the bathroom, etc., but I had no idea where he was.”
Hartsfield asked the man how long he had lived on the property, to which he replied, “Not very long.”
She also asked him if he owned the house, to which he replied that he was a “distant relative of the delusional homeowner.”
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After leaving the home, Hartsfield tried to contact the real estate agent multiple times to reassure them that the house wasn’t vacant after all and to share her experience, but was unable to get in touch.
She also contacted police, who told her that even if they acknowledged the man shouldn’t have been on the property, they couldn’t enter the home without the homeowner’s permission, who Hartsfield believes lived out of state.
Hartsfield said the home has since been “temporarily removed from the market.”
After this experience, Hartsfield offered some tips for homeowners and those in the real estate industry.
“My best advice for homeowners would be if you’re moving out of state and you plan on selling the home after you move, or if you’re a distant relative and the family home is going through probate, to have someone keep a close eye on the property on a regular basis,” she explained, calling those homes “easy targets.”
When it comes to the real estate industry, Hartsfield advised people to always be prepared to defend themselves if necessary.
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“If someone is showing a house in an unfamiliar area or with unknown clients, be prepared to have to defend yourself and just be vigilant,” she explained. She said she felt safe knowing she had a loaded weapon by her side throughout the incident, which she is legally able to do in Alabama.
“Hopefully, I won’t have to touch it or do anything, but you never know,” Hartsfield said.
“If you notice something’s not right, don’t go into the home alone, especially if you’re a seasoned real estate agent and have some idea of how this job should go.”
