Last March, in the fresh grasslands of Queens, a 90-year-old landlady named Mrs. Qiu rented her house to a family from Eastern Europe. However, this family only paid one month’s security deposit and one month’s rent, and then never paid again, yet they continued to live there until now. The landlord has already lost over $30,000, and the key issue is that she cannot evict them. The elderly woman and her family are very frustrated, stating that if they could get rid of the tenant, they would immediately sell the house and never invest in real estate in that area again.
The tenancy agreement was signed by Mrs. Qiu’s daughter, Michelle. At that time, the other party provided very good documentation, with a credit score of over 800, everything seemed normal, so Michelle rented out the house. They turned out to be a Roma family, with the women wearing large skirts. Michelle received the keys after receiving one month’s rent as a security deposit and one month’s rent.
From the beginning, both the mother and daughter felt that something was off. For one, before the official move-in date of April 1st, they had already moved in in mid-March. Secondly, after moving in, there were noises every night, and the husband seemed not to be working, picking up and dropping off the children to school everyday, owning several cars including Mercedes-Benz and BMW, although not having a job.
At this point, Michelle deeply regretted not evicting them at the first sign of trouble, thereby allowing the other party to exploit the “30-day” legal deadline in New York to gain the status of a “tenant,” becoming a squatter that was hard to get rid of.
Starting from June, Michelle and her mother began trying to drive them out. “We said, ‘You can’t stay here, go find another place.'” The other party then began intentionally damaging the room facilities, saying things like “this is broken, that is broken,” forcing Michelle to find repairmen to fix things, even demanding air conditioning to be installed for them…
When they asked for rent later, the tenant straightforwardly replied, “This is my house, not yours,” leading Michelle’s sister to produce the property certificate and ask, “Which name here is yours?!”
Around the time of the Chinese New Year this year, Mrs. Qiu and her family had no choice but to seek legal help. In mid-February, they went to the court to file a complaint, from then on, there was no further action, as they had to wait for the court to schedule a hearing.
Watching the Roma family happily living in their own house, Michelle and her sister and elderly mother felt very aggrieved. “Our house was not built out of thin air. It was bought with hard-earned money by our parents for us. You cannot say we deserve bad luck and let you live here for free. This is unreasonable,” Michelle told Epoch Times. “We feel helpless now, very helpless.”
In the past few months, Michelle and her family have tried everything to evict the squatters. Some suggested reporting them to the child welfare office for verbal abuse towards their children. However, when the child welfare office investigated, they warned Michelle not to file false reports or harass tenants. Others suggested cutting off their electricity, but Michelle felt it was not appropriate and refrained from doing so. Even with the help of people from her sister’s church, it did not work.
Ultimately, the elderly landlady had no choice but to sit in front of the squatters’ house every day on a small stool, reading and watching the news, reminding them as soon as they opened the door, “Move out, move out, you have no contract!”
“This is truly draining us mentally. The pressure is too much,” Michelle said. She mentioned that after getting rid of this troublesome family, she would sell the house and would no longer invest in real estate in New York. “The government does not treat us small landlords well,” she expressed, “We have been bitten by a snake once, and we are afraid of the rope for ten years.”
责任编辑：陳玟綺