The squatter crisis — and law enforcement’s reluctance to deal with the problem — will inevitably lead to vigilante justice by frustrated homeowners with nowhere to turn, one expert warns.
Real estate mogul Shawn Meaike, a 51-year-old podcaster and serial entrepreneur, told The Post that lenient laws letting squatters stay in houses they don’t own and aren’t renting must change — and soon.
Otherwise, fed-up homeowners will do the job police can’t.
“I’m concerned, truthfully, that you push people too far,” Meaike said. “And if there is no law to protect them, what they’re going to do is not going to be a result that anybody’s happy with.”
“I don’t want it to happen,” the real estate and insurance giant said. “But something bad is gonna’ happen. And you’re going to start [seeing] articles on violent confrontations that could end up in severe injury or somebody’s death.”
Although the squatter phenomenon is not new, Meaike said he’s rarely dealt with it during his 25 years in real estate.
He’s noticed it more and more recently — especially as shocking cases seize the public’s attention, such as the Queens man arrested for moving himself and other renters into a $1 million house in Flushing owned by a woman whose parents had passed away.
Whenever Meaike had a run in with illegal tenants, the solution was simple: Call the cops.
“The police didn’t question anything — you weren’t a tenant, you didn’t have a lease, you were gone.”
When asked why he thinks the problem suddenly worsened, Meaike said some tenants have no other choice. Rents are sky-high, mortgage rates have ballooned and buying a property has become unattainable for some.
“There’s a lot of people who are literally frozen out — are there are a lot of options for them?” he asked.
“People get desperate,” he continued. “I know how difficult this market is for a lot of people. Listen, when it comes down to your survival, we’ll do about anything. Especially if we’re providing for children.”
Not everyone is caught in such a bind though.
Some folks may just want to take advantage of weak laws that make it truly difficult to boot deadbeats — especially in the five boroughs, where a legal loophole lets squatters claim legal occupancy after just 30 days on a given property.
The cutoff is 10 years in the most of the Empire State.
“That’s the question,” Meaike said.
“How many of these people are doing this out of necessity to survive, and how many of them are doing it [because], ‘You know what? This seems like something that has no consequence, so let’s get me and eight people to move into this guy’s property and take advantage of it because nobody’s going do anything about it.’
“They ordered Uber Eats, and now they’re claiming occupancy,” he added, referencing another shocking case in which two alleged squatters served up a $25 Shake Shack receipt as part of their proof that they should be allowed to live in a $930,000 home in Jamaica, Queens.
That’s why the laws need to change — and the cops need to get tough, he said.
“We have to make sure that, like in Florida, there are laws that … when you call the police, they will come out and remove them,” he said. “They’re very aggressive.”
But homeowners can also take steps to protect themselves before they get embroiled in such disputes, Meaike said, by hardening their property the same way they might against would-be criminals.
For instance, they should fortify their front doors, install hurricane windows that can withstand strikes from a baseball bat, hook up camera and alarm systems and maybe hang a “Beware of Dog” sign — even if no pooches live on the property.
“Put the money into it,” Meaike said. “If you’re getting into real estate, and you can’t afford these measures, then you can’t afford to get into real estate.”
Still, the whole thing hits close to home for Meaike, who said squatters taking over one of his houses would have financially crippled him when he was just starting out.
He doesn’t want to see others go through that.
“I remember being stressed out about collecting rent when I first started,” he said. “I didn’t have any money. And I don’t know what I would have done if … there were a couple of guys hanging out in my apartment, I went to throw them out and the police told me I couldn’t.
“I don’t know that I wouldn’t have taken matters into my own hands.”
Some squatters even want that, he said, because then they can get a restraining order against the landlord and drag the legal brawl out even longer.
“Real estate has been such an amazing way for me to help other people gain wealth — and for me to change my trajectory, because I didn’t have any money growing up.”
“I hate that some people nowadays are going to experience this once, possibly go into foreclosure, go into bankruptcy, never try it again,” he continued. “And they’ll never try to get ahead because of what happened to them.
“That’s the American dream. But it can become a nightmare.”
