A New York squatter who has been living in a deceased man’s home for the past six years has finally allowed the landlord to take the family’s belongings left inside the house.
Donna Kent recently broke into her father’s Staten Island home after his death in 2012, but when she arrived to claim her father’s valuable possessions, she was met by a self-conscious squatter named Kyle. According to News Nation.
The squatters chose not to throw away Kent’s father’s belongings when they took over the residence.
“I knew exactly what the situation was going to be like, someone’s going to come back,” Kyle told the outlet, “and how would they feel if I told them I was throwing away their parents’ property?”
Kyle claims he knew exactly what he was doing while staying at the home but acknowledges he broke no laws and was a squatter.
“Yes, technically it is, but I’m not trespassing, I’m not trespassing illegally,” Kyle said. “They just stopped coming and collecting rent.”
“I thought someone would show up eventually, but no one did.”
It is unclear what her relationship was with Kent, who died in 2012, but the outlet reported that the house became Kent’s property more than a decade later.
During a tour of the dilapidated house, Kent was taken upstairs where all of his father’s belongings were kept.
“There’s stuff scattered everywhere,” she said of boxes of items strewn about the attic.
Among Kent’s belongings, he found old family photos (most of them from his father’s second marriage, but some dating back to the 1930s), baseball cards, and what appeared to be human remains.
“These must be someone’s ashes,” Kent said, holding up a gold, square urn. “Are these my father’s ashes?”
But after finding several more cans containing what appeared to be human remains, Kent came across a can marked “pet crematorium” and realised his father had a small pet cemetery in the attic.
“I feel a little more at ease knowing that it’s a pet and not a human being,” Kent said.
After rummaging through his father’s belongings, Kent didn’t find the relief he’d hoped for.
““I always felt like there was something there that gave me a glimpse into my dad’s life, and it was nice to be able to go inside the house and see it for myself,” she said.
New York City homeowners have been plagued by squatters who sit in their homes and refuse to leave, but many of them aren’t as friendly as Kyle.
One of the squatters, 24-year-old Lance Whitehunt, sued the Queens homeowner in March, presenting a Shake Shack receipt as proof of residence and trying to claim ownership of the property.
His plan backfired and he was charged with 18 counts and could face 15 years in prison if convicted.
Last month, City Councilwoman Susan Chuang introduced a bill to track squatters and the properties they occupy and list them in an online database.
The quarterly reports will be published online, along with information such as the addresses of known squatters’ homes and the number of days the properties have been under squatter control.
It also includes when the NYPD and city officials became aware of the squatters and how they responded to their complaints.
