A Houston woman claims she has been locked out of her own property by squatters who changed the locks, drew up a fake lease, and now refuse to leave.
“They locked me out of my own property,” Linda Giang told ABC 13 Houston this week. “That’s crazy.”
Giang said she went to check on a property that had been renting out for $3,600 a month after she received a letter from the local homeowners association asking her to clear out leaves on her driveway.
When she arrived, she found trespassers living in the home with a “contract” they say another landlord who was not Giang or her husband.
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5300 block of South Braeswood in Houston. (Google Earth)
“I had the keys with me and walked in and discovered a family of five living in there. And she says she has a lease contract and actually emailed me the lease contract.”
Giang said the squatters are living on air mattresses in the home and have changed the locks twice since being discovered.
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“They broke into my house, they’re trespassing,” Giang said. “That should be a criminal trespass. They’re violating my privacy. This is my property.”
The woman living in the home, identified as Tamisha Holmes-Bey, claims she paid $6,000 to a realtor to live in the home after moving out from California to “start a new life.”
The Daily Mail reported that public records show she has been in Texas for years and has been evicted several times.
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Texas, Houston, Skyline at Dusk and I-45 commuter traffic. (Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Houston police officers were spotted on the scene but an arrest was not made after they determined it was a civil matter that had to be resolved in courts similar to many other squatter situations that have popped up across the country in recent months.
Giang told the outlet she hopes police will reconsider their classification of her complaint.
“What regulations (are) there to protect homeowners from this kind of thing happening?” Giang said. “I never knew this kind of thing could happen.”
