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Some homeowners left waiting in limbo as several states work out anti-squatting stances
New anti-squatter laws go into effect a week from Monday in both Florida and Tennessee, which will make it six states that have passed similar laws this year. But some U.S. homeowners aren’t waiting for new laws to help them confront the problem.
When Jean, an 81-year-old grandmother in Idaho, inherited a plot of commercial land in Los Angeles, she thought her financial worries were over — until squatters claimed the property. Jean says at least 20 people in a dozen RVs took control and barred her from her own land. At the same time, she says she has continued paying property taxes and liability insurance.
Jean says she’s spent her savings of about $100,000 to cover legal fees, taxes and lost rent. Although she found a buyer willing to take the property with the squatters, she says she had to drop her asking price by $800,000.
Squatters’ rights go back to the British legal system, where the idea was to ensure abandoned or unused property could be put to good use by people who needed it. But the good intentions of centuries-old law have created some modern-day nightmares.
At another Los Angeles property that’s been vacant for four years, squatters moved in after the owner died during the COVID-19 pandemic and no one in his family claimed it. The home has since fallen into disrepair and is riddled with broken windows, trash and graffiti.
Terri Cortez lives next door and says, “It’s been a horrible nightmare.” She wants the city to tear it down.
“I think the neighbors and I are very scared sometimes of what kind of people come up and people sometimes come in,” Cortez said.
Since law enforcement can’t do much and court battles can take years, other people are stepping in with different approaches.
Lando Thomas and Kimrey Kotchick run a company called “Squatter Squad.” They break the locks squatters install and put up cameras to monitor them around the clock.
But they say even that isn’t always enough to drive squatters away. In one incident, they were called in by a homeowner whose Airbnb guest overstayed his reservation and refused to leave.
Squatting has become a problem for landlords far beyond Southern California. One survey shows cities and counties in Georgia, Texas and Florida have more squatters than any other metropolitan area, according to the National Rental Home Council.
This story is Part 1 of a “CBS Evening News” report on squatting. Part 2 airs Tuesday, June 25, and will focus on solutions to the problem.
Nearly lost forever, a family heirloom painting turned out to be a Texas masterpiece and sold for six figures at Dallas-based auction house last week.
According to Heritage Auctions, the painting of Texas bluebonnets was loaded onto a trailer with donations bound for Goodwill, all belongings of a woman who was moving to the West Coast for retirement.
She had received it as a gift from an extended family member in Texas to commemorate her birth in 1922, according to the auction house. At the last minute, the woman decided “it was too pretty to surrender,” and she kept it.
After the woman died, her daughter kept the painting on display in her own home near Tacoma, Washington.
For years, no one in the family realized the artwork was an original by “the father of Texas painting,” Julian Onderdonk. The family recently made the discovery and decided to put it up for auction “to someone who will genuinely appreciate it,” the original owner’s grandson told Heritage Auctions.
On June 29, the painting, named “A Field of Bluebonnets, San Antonio” sold for $112,500. In the same auction, two other Onderdonk paintings sold for $106,250 and $93,750, respectively.
Heritage Auctions, HA.com
Who was Julian Onderdonk?
Onderdonk was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1882 and showed artistic talent at a young age, according to the Texas Historical Society. He began teaching art as a teenager and later moved to New York City to study and teach.
In 1906, Onderdonk took a seasonal job organizing art exhibitions at the Dallas State Fair, now known as the State Fair of Texas. In 1909, he moved his family back to Texas, eventually taking an interest in painting bluebonnets and other Texas landscapes.
Onderdonk painted “A Field of Bluebonnets, San Antonio,” in 1921. He died the next year, at the peak of his success.
His work is on display at several museums, including the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth and the San Antonio Museum of Art.
Former President George W. Bush had several Onderdonk works in the White House during his administration, according to the historical society.
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Watch Live: Biden awards Medal of Honor to 2 Union soldiers who hijacked train behind enemy lines
Washington — President Biden is awarding posthumous Medals of Honor on Wednesday to two Army privates who were a part of a plot to hijack a train and destroy Confederate infrastructure during the Civil War.
The president will honor Philip Shadrach and George Wilson for their “gallantry and intrepidity” in carrying out a covert operation called the “Great Locomotive Chase,” which played out 200 miles behind Confederate lines in Georgia in 1862, the White House said.
“In one of the earliest special operations in U.S. Army history, Union Soldiers dressed as civilians infiltrated the Confederacy, hijacked a train in Georgia and drove it north for 87 miles, destroying enemy infrastructure along the way. During what later became known as the Great Locomotive Chase, six of the Union participants became the Army’s first recipients of the newly created Medal of Honor,” a White House official said.
The operation was hatched by James Andrews, a Kentucky-born civilian spy and scout. He proposed penetrating the Confederacy with the goal of degrading their railway and communications lines to cut off Chattanooga, Tennessee, from Confederate supplies and reinforcements.
Andrews, together with 23 other men, infiltrated the South in small groups, coming together north of Atlanta. On April 12, 1862, 22 of the men commandeered a locomotive called The General and ventured north, tearing up railroad tracks and cutting telegraph wires as they went. The men became known as the Andrews’ Raiders.
Shadrach, originally from Pennsylvania and orphaned at a young age, was just 21 when he volunteered for the mission. On Sept. 20, 1861, he left home and enlisted in a Union Army Ohio Infantry Regiment. Wilson, born in Ohio, was a journeyman shoemaker before he enlisted in a Union Army’s Ohio Volunteer Infantry in 1861. He also volunteered for the Andrews’ Raid.
After the operation, both men were captured, convicted as spies and hanged.
“It is unknown why Private Shadrach and Private Wilson were not originally recommended for the Medal of Honor,” a White House official said. “Both were deserving in 1863, and on July 3, 2024, by order of the President of the United States both will be posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.”
The ceremony comes as questions mount over Mr. Biden’s future as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, with his public appearances under intense scrutiny following his halting performance at last week’s presidential debate. After the Medal of Honor ceremony, the president is meeting with Democratic governors to address their concerns and chart his path forward.
How to watch Biden present the Medal of Honor
- What: President Biden awards the Medal of Honor
- Date: July 3, 2024
- Time: 4:45 p.m. ET
- Location: White House
- Online stream: Live on CBS News in the player above and on your mobile or streaming device.
