Miami man cleaning up rental home after JSO arrests 5 squatters

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A homeowner is now gutting his house from five squatters who were recently arrested for living in the rental home he manages in Northwest Jacksonville.

“Trashed it. Broke the window,” Jose Losada said.

Losada first learned something was wrong Aug. 1, when a neighbor called to say multiple people were inside his property on Westmar Road. The owner was out of the city at the time and couldn’t respond when officers made an initial visit to the home.

Later that night, Losada spotted people still inside the residence and contacted police again around 11:50 p.m. He told officers no one should have been in the home — the last tenant had been formally evicted June 23, and he provided documentation to confirm it.

Losada believed the suspects entered through a broken window near the front door that led to the kitchen. He told officers he had previously seen broken glass in that area — and it was gone when he arrived.

“Gave him the keys. Parked over there and they had 4 squad cars here. And with those 4 it became 8 and with those 8 it became 12. And with supervisors with dogs it became 14,” Losada said of what happened when police came in.

As far as now, he’s working to restore the home so it can be a rental again.

He found four bicycles left behind and says he plans to sell them to a pawn shop to recoup the $185 he had to pay JEA for what the squatters did.

Losada also said he’s cutting down all the bushes around the house so future squatters have no place to hid.

Here are the conditions that have to be met before an officer can intervene:

• The requesting person is the property owner or authorized agent of the property owner.
• The real property that is being occupied includes a residential dwelling.
• An unauthorized person or persons have unlawfully entered and remain or continue to reside on the property owner’s property.
• The real property was not open to members of the public at the time the unauthorized person or persons entered.
• The property owner has directed the unauthorized person to leave the property.
• The unauthorized person or persons are not current or former tenants pursuant to a written or oral rental agreement authorized by the property owner.
• The unauthorized person or persons are not immediate family members of the property owner.
• There is no pending litigation related to the real property between the property owner and any known unauthorized person.