“Houseguest” turned squatter

Portia James

New Member
Jurisdiction
California
We live in California and I have dealt with squatters before as a landlord with my ex husband. The squatters destroyed our rental property and we could not do JACK SQUAT about it. We had to go the legal route and it was a long drawn out process.

Now 20 years later my 2nd husband and I are dealing with a houseguest turned squatter. This guy was a former friend of mine he sent me a message saying he was sick, homeless, sleeping in his car, and his on again off again ex wife kicked him out and he needed a place to stay just for a week maybe two. We took him in since we had a guest room and he had helped me once with a place to stay when his ex wife needed a roommate to help her pay rent and utilities because he wasn't working and unemployment wasn't going to pay him and I was leaving an abusive relationship with some painfully cracked ribs. When he came to us he said he couldn't work because he was sick, the money he got from his lawsuit against his former employer was spent up, my husband and I felt that he had helped me once when I needed it so we would help him.

He stayed past the 2 weeks he had said and told us he still had no place to go after that since he hadn't worked and he was still sick and needed more time to get better. That went on another month before he said that he'd pay us rent and help around the house. It was a verbal agreement between he and my husband. The houseguest ended up needing back surgery, my husband and I waited on him hand and foot before his surgery, made sure he got to the doctors, brought food into the room for him. All with a baby of our own who needed us and we were dividing our attention between the two of them and caring for them. Once he had the surgery it was worse and my in laws came to stay with us to help us so we could take care of him and our baby. Once he was considered recovered my husband was transferred across the state by his company. Our houseguest still had no place to go, still wasn't working, and when he would try to drive for work he'd say it hurt too badly so he had to recover and he'd hold up in the guest room until I made dinner.

After all of this with the houseguest I ended up with major back problems myself. We were moving across state and the houseguest claimed he wanted to come along and help us and find work where we were moving and pay rent there. Once we moved it all started again with him not working, his back hurting too much, and it was the same old story with him.

Now almost TWO yes TWO years later he is still living under our roof and still not paying rent or helping around the house even. And I'm pregnant again with a high risk pregnancy. He's had every excuse why he can't pay rent, he had another work related lawsuit with an employer go in his favor. He said he needed that money to pay off the debt his ex wife had put on him. He told us he couldn't work during the lawsuit because he was on unemployment and working would compromise his lawsuit and unemployment didn't pay him enough to survive and pay us rent. But he said once again that he'd pay us rent and go back to work but again same thing. Something else came up and couldn't work, pay rent, or leave his room unless it was dinner time. He's driven on and off this entire time. He claims he makes good money but can't pay rent.

Now that we are getting closer to delivering our baby we've asked him to find a place of his own and he offered to again pay rent. This time producing a nominal check to my husband for May/June rent. He told us it was because he was moving out and paying someone else rent once he moved in to that place and it was the right thing for him to do. Well, now we are past when he said he would move. He posted dated the check to the end of June and we are still in mid June. My husband brought up to him that we need the room for our baby due in a couple of weeks. He destroyed the carpet in the room and broke the fan. When we called around to get quotes on cleaning the carpet no one would touch it we were told to replace it because it's not worth it. After my husband told him what the carpet cleaning companies said, not that he'd have to pay for the repairs or new carpet. He went off!!!

He sent my husband messages guilt tripping him about how hard he has it. Then RANTED to me in extremely long messages about how he did so much for me and how I owed him as a friend. He said the least I could do after everything he did for me was get my husband not to deposit the check he gave him. He went into how he had so many bills and I was such a horrible friend to him because I didn't ask him about his problems and he was struggling and no one was helping him. He continued with his messages to me after being told to stop. Telling me he was going to commit suicide and he was depressed and lonely and I had everything and he has nothing and if it weren't for him helping me when he did I wouldn't have this life. He again said the least I could do for him was to get my husband to give him the check back and if we wanted him out that would depend upon me and what I did. If I got him the check he would move out. I got him the check back and he didn't move. He hides in the room and comes out when we are gone or sleeping.

What can we do!!!! There's no contract between us, we have a baby on the way soon, and he's a "houseguest" that followed us across state. Which he blames us for because it put him in a bad position moving with us. He said he got conned out of a large sum of money from a place that he was going to rent and he can't move. He told me he's going to be homeless now if he gets kicked out of here and we made him move here. He needs to find a place and he's waiting on his third work related lawsuit before he can move (3 suits in less than four years) .

I want to pack his stuff up, put it in the driveway, change the locks, and never speak to him again. He ended our friendship when he stood on that bridge we extended to him, set it on fire while he was still on it, and blamed us for the bridge burning. I'm certainly not trying to salvage a friendship with him! What can we do to get him out of our house? He's not a "renter", we owe him nothing despite what he thinks with living under our roof this entire time. We gave him his check back so he could move like he asked. Can we just pack him up, put his stuff in the driveway, and change our locks?
 
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You'll have to evict the deadbeat through the courts.

If you dump his junk on the curb, he could sue you, and he'd probably prevail.
 
You'll have to evict the deadbeat through the courts.

If you dump his junk on the curb, he could sue you, and he'd probably prevail.

*grimace* I've had nightmares of him suing us and staying here and we had to give him money.
I was hoping that because it's our house and he's under our roof with us that we'd be able to get him out easier. Thanks for the response.
 
You have a faster solution.
You do not have a tenant, you have a lodger, and a lodger can be removed much more easily.
Serve him written notice immediately to end his occupancy. You might check with an attorney to see how much time you must give him. Normally you have to give at least as much time as the period required for rent, but since he never paid and there is no lease you will probably have to default to 30 days, but it could be as little as 7.
If he remains after that period ends you can have him removed by law enforcement and arrested for trespassing.

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