A Squater Occupies our property in South Florida

Tuesday, April 22, 2015

A squatter is someone who lives on or occupies a property to which he possesses no legal title or claim.  In Florida, squatters may obtain rights in limited circumstances, and my concern was that's exactly what this squatter intended to do.

He showed up a couple of days ago and was obviously hungry and homeless.  He was walking around our neighborhood looking for a place to squat.  He didn't bother anyone, but we all were keenly aware of his presences.  He would disappear at night, only to show up again the next morning. Needless to say, Kitty and I were getting concerned about about his presence, and our dog, Kallie kept constant track of his wanderings.

Then it happened!  Bam!  Just like that, we saw him laying in our yard of all places!  We began to wonder why he picked our yard to lay down.  There's dozens of yards on our street.  Why did he pick our yard?  We had been trying real hard to ignore him and never made eye contact with him. Then he got really brave and moved into the shade of our car port.  Now, we really felt trapped in our own home!  We had to figure out how we were going to get rid of the unwanted intruder.  It's only been a couple of days and already he looks like he owns the place!  Even Kallie looked worried!

Finally, I mustered up enough nerve to go outside and see what he was up to.  I don't recommend any of you ever having a face to face encounter with a squatter, but I was running out of options.  I     slowly and cautiously walked to the car port and found him laying under our golf cart where he was obviously trying to hide from me!  I cleared my throat and blurted our a firm warning, "Go on, get out of here!  We don't want your kind around here!"  He just laid there starring at me!  So, after taking a deep breath, I repeated my warning much louder this time. "Go on and get out of here!"  After what seemed like several minutes of us starring at each other, he finally picked his pathetic self up and strolled over to our porch where he promptly sprawled out completely relaxed!  Perhaps he didn't understand English, but surely he could tell by the stern tone in my voice I meant business! That's when I did it!  I finally had enough of the squatter and called the authorities to have have him removed from our property once and for all!

I am hoping that some of you may recognized this guy.  We took a picture of him laying under our golf cart and stretching out on our porch.  If you know who this guy is, please let us know immediately!

Here he is hiding under our golf cart! 

Now he's relaxing on our porch!

Once we got to know the little fellow, he was actually quite friendly.  He loved to be held and was obviously someone's pet.  He even made friends with Kallie and they enjoyed playing with each other, unlike most dogs and cats.  We thought seriously about keeping him.  Our neighbor tried to take him to their home, but their dog and cat had other ideas and it was immediately apparent that he wasn't welcomed there.  So, we took the little guy to a no kill shelter and were assured someone would adopt our friendly little squatter!