Squatters cause $38K in damages at Florida rental home: reports

Two female squatters and their pit bulls shacked up in a Florida rental property for more than a month, causing nearly $40,000 in damages — and attacking the landlords by flinging a brick and human poop at them, according to reports.

Patti Peeples and Dawn Tiura, co-owners of a rental home in Jacksonville, learned that their investment property had been overtaken by a couple after a handyman was sent to make repairs ahead of an inspection for a potential sale. 

After the worker discovered a pit bull with roughly a dozen of its puppies basking on the sunroom porch, Peeples headed over only to find an unwelcome couple had broken into the property, according to News4Jax.

The women most likely had moved in in March, after a previous tenant had vacated the home, according to the owners. 

The squatters, who were in a relationship, claimed to police that they were victims of a Zillow rental scam, purporting that they had signed a lease agreement and paid rent, a security deposit and a pet deposit to a false landlord, Fox News reported. 

According to a police report, though, one of the women had been evicted in mid-February from a nearby home following a similar yarn. In that instance, she said she paid rent to a landlord with the same address as the one they paid to rent Peeples’ and Tiura’s property.

The landlords finally regained control of their home this week, after spending $5,000 in court fees. 

″This has been a 40-plus day process that we have been unable to take repossession of a home that we own by squatters who broke in and inhabited our home and then destroyed it,” Peeples told News4Jax.

Peeples, who said the property is helping fund her retirement, claimed that the squatters also attacked her and Tiura.

“We were driving by at night, and they threw a brick at my car and damaged it, and we had the window partway down, and they threw human feces into the car,” Peeples told Fox News.

Only after giving the squatters the boot did the landlords see how badly the couple had destroyed their home. Among the wreckage were ripped-out cabinets, holes punched in the wall, the washer and dryer were missing and dog poop was spread through the property. 

An irate Peeples called on Gov. Ron DeSantis and other politicians to amend the state law to make it easier for landlords to oust squatters. 

“Squatters are nothing more than criminals who are breaking and entering into a house, should not be handled in civil court,” Peeples told Fox News. “They should be treated within the criminal court system.”