A handyman turned the tables on suspected squatters who took over his mother’s Northern California home.

“If they could take a house, then I could take a house,” Flash Shelton of the United Handyman Association said in a YouTube video. “They’re the squatter, and they have rights. Well, then, if I become the squatter on the squatter, then I should have rights, right?”

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Shelton’s video detailing his quest to reclaim the California home has garnered more than two million views on YouTube.

Shelton said his father recently passed away, and his mother couldn’t live in the house on her own. So they put it up for rent.

A woman who identified herself as a prison guard asked to rent the house, according to Shelton, but she didn’t have any money or credit, so he said no. Then he learned a truckload of furniture and other belongings had been delivered to the home.

“She said that it was delivered by accident and she was getting rid of it,” Shelton said.

Flash Shelton of the United Handyman Association said he didn’t want to wait for the court system to force squatters off his mother’s property. (United Handyman Association “Handyman Answers”/YouTube)

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Instead, the handyman started hearing from realtors that the house was full of furniture and people. Neighbors said the lights were on at night. Shelton called the police, but like many Americans facing squatters, the answer he got was unhelpful.

“They basically said, ‘You know, I’m sorry, but we can’t enter the house, and it looks like they’re living there. So you need to go through the courts,'” Shelton recalled law enforcement telling him.

Homeowners across the nation have been embroiled in costly legal battles to try to remove squatters, with no resolution in sight.

“Even though you’re at your house, and you’re paying the mortgage … at some point, squatters feel like they have more rights than you, so they don’t have incentive to leave until a judge tells them to,” he said. “And that could take months, six months, it could take years. I don’t know. I didn’t want to take that chance.”

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So he hatched a plan. Shelton wrote up a lease agreement between himself and his mother designating Shelton as the legal resident of the home. 

He loaded some guns and his dog into his Jeep and set off for California, arriving at 4 a.m. to find cars in the driveway. Shelton said he parked down the street and waited until everyone left the house several hours later.

Shelton let himself in using the keys to the house. Video shows a bed and other furniture sitting inside the home as well as boxes of belongings and what appears to be a California Department of Corrections uniform.

Shelton said he started installing security cameras when two women pulled up to the house.

“I’m really sorry about all this,” one of the women can be heard saying in a video Shelton recorded. “It’s a nightmare and beyond.”

Shelton told the woman that if she didn’t have everything out by midnight, he’d have it hauled away. The alleged squatters missed the deadline, but were gone by three, Shelton said.

Alleged squatters removed the furniture and belongings from the house. Shelton said that he and his mother were ultimately able to sell it. (United Handyman Association “Handyman Answers”/YouTube)

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“I think just the fact that I was there was enough,” he said. “It was actually fun to do it. I won’t lie about that. I’m glad it was successful.”

But Shelton cautioned against following his lead in a second video.

“Not everyone should walk through that door not knowing what you’re gonna find,” he said. “It’s not always going to be peaceful like that.”

Hannah Ray Lambert is an associate producer/writer with Fox News Digital Originals.

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This California handyman found a creative way to force out squatters — but it’s a dangerous tactic. Here are 3 ways to invest in real estate without putting your safety at risk

When United Handyman Association founder Flash Shelton found squatters in his mother’s home, the only way he could get rid of her unwanted guests — after local police said they couldn’t help — was to out-squat the squatters.

“I called local law enforcement and as soon as they saw there was furniture in the house, they said I had a squatter situation, they had basically no jurisdiction and they couldn’t do anything,” Shelton told Fox Business’ Stuart Varney. “So, I dissected the laws over a weekend and basically figured out that until there’s civil action, the squatters didn’t have any rights, so if I could switch places with them and become the squatter myself, I would assume those squatter rights.”

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He had his mom write up a lease for him and got it notarized, he staked out the home early one morning, waiting for the squatters to leave. When they did eventually leave, Shelton entered the property, put up cameras and waited for them to return.

Shelton’s scheme worked and the squatters left — but not without putting him in a potentially dangerous situation.

Dealing with squatters, or even tenants, can get complicated and costly. Thankfully, there are safer and easier ways to make your mark in real estate.

Squatter rights

A squatter is someone who inhabits a piece of land or a building that they have no legal right to occupy — and without paying rent.

According to the American Apartment Owners Association (AAOA), most states have laws that give squatters rights to inhabit a property “in the event that the lawful owner does not evict or take action against,” them and they differ from state to state. Those laws typically only apply if the squatter has been illegitimately occupying a space for a specific period of time — after which, they will have gained “adverse possession,” and local law enforcement won’t be of much help.

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Squatters should not be confused with trespassers. A blog post on the AAOA site explains: “A trespasser breaks into the property through an illegal entry and doesn’t have utilities, furniture or any form of a prior lease. Due to this, trespassers can be removed for violation of local loitering or trespassing laws.”

“I feel bad I can’t help everyone,” said Shelton in the FOX Business interview, who is now running a service to help other property owners deal with squatters. “I’m trying to change the laws.”

That being said, it’s never advisable to take the law into your own hands, especially in a heated situation like an eviction. If the risk of serial squatters and the other trials and tribulations of being a landlord don’t appeal to you, here are three ways you can invest in real estate without all the hassle.

REITs

Investing in a real estate investment trust (REIT) is a way to profit from the real estate market without having to buy a house or worry about screening tenants, fixing damages, chasing down late payments or even facing trespassers.

REITs are publicly traded companies that own income-producing real estate like apartment buildings, shopping centers and office towers. They collect rent from tenants and pass that rent to shareholders in the form of regular dividend payments.

Essentially, REITs are giant landlords. To qualify as an REIT, a company must pay out at least 90% of its taxable income to shareholders as dividends each year, in addition to other requirements. In exchange, they pay little to no income tax at the corporate level.

Generally, REITs are described as high-return investments that provide solid dividends and the potential for moderate, long-term capital appreciation.

Also, as REITs are publicly traded, you can buy or sell shares any time and your investment can be as little or as large as you want — unlike buying a house, which usually requires a hefty down payment followed by a mortgage.

Read more: Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now use $100 to cash in on prime real estate — without the headache of being a landlord. Here’s how

Real estate ETFs

Another easy way to invest in real estate without having to pick and choose which stocks to buy and sell is through exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

And as the name suggests, ETFs trade on major exchanges, making them convenient to buy and sell. Some ETFs passively track an index, while others are actively managed. They all charge a fee — referred to as the management expense ratio — in exchange for managing the fund.

The Vanguard Real Estate ETF (VNQ), for example, provides investors with broad exposure to U.S. REITs. The fund currently holds 164 stocks with total net assets of $64.2 billion. Over the past 10 years, VNQ’s net asset value (NAV) has grown 5.5%. Its management expense ratio is 0.12%.

Another example is the Real Estate Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLRE), which aims to replicate the real estate sector of the S&P 500 Index. It currently has 31 holdings and an expense ratio of 0.10%. Since the fund’s inception in October 2015, XLRE’s NAV has grown 6.64%.

Both of these ETFs pay quarterly distributions.

Crowdfunding platforms

Through a crowdfunding platform, you can buy a percentage of physical real estate — from rental properties to commercial properties. You can even buy a stake in digital real estate.

If you’re an experienced investor looking to up your stake in real estate, there are also options for accredited investors that often have higher minimum investments that can reach tens of thousands of dollars or more.

If you’re not an accredited investor, many platforms allow you to invest smaller sums, even as low as $100.

These online platforms make real estate investing more accessible by simplifying the process and lowering the barrier to entry.

Sponsors of crowdfunded real estate deals usually charge fees to investors — typically in the range of 0.5% to 2.5% of whatever you’ve invested.

What to read next

This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.

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In the immortal words of Michael Scott, “Good, good, good. Like the turntables.”

When squatters took over his mother’s home, Flash Shelton did what any good son would do: He immediately backed down.

“If they could take a house, I could take a house,” Shelton said.

YouTube: United Handyman Association

Shelton, a handyman from Nevada, said after his father’s death that his mother couldn’t live alone in the house. So they put the house up for rent.

A woman claiming to be a prison guard asked to rent the house, but she had neither money nor credit. Though Shelton denied her request, she still had all of her furniture and belongings delivered to her home.

“She said it was accidentally delivered and she wanted to get rid of it,” Shelton said.

But he soon found out that was a lie.

YouTube: United Handyman Association

Neighbors reported that the house was full of people and the lights stayed on at night. Shelton tried calling the police about the squatters, but they were basically no help.

“They basically said, ‘You know, I’m sorry, but we can’t go into the house and it looks like they live there. So you have to go to court,'” Shelton said.

But who wants to deal with the time and expense of litigation?

“Even though you’re in your house paying the mortgage, at some point squatters feel like they have more rights than you do, so they have no incentive to leave until a judge tells them to,” he said. “And that could take months, six months, it could take years. I don’t know. I didn’t want to take that risk.”

Shelton hatched a plan to remove the squatters.

And he documented the whole thing on his YouTube channel.

Shelton wrote a lease between him and his mother, which listed Shelton as the legal occupant of the house. He then packed the essentials (his guns and dog) and set off for California.

Once everyone was out of the house, he used his key to let himself in. He began setting up surveillance cameras when two women arrived.

“I’m really sorry about all this,” said one of the women. “It’s a nightmare and beyond.”

Shelton told the women that if they didn’t have everything out by midnight, he would have it shipped. It took the squatters until 3 p.m. to get out, but Shelton was kind enough to let it slide.

Eye to eye. Tooth for tooth. A squat for a squat.

“I think just the fact that I was there was enough,” he said. “It was really fun doing that. I won’t lie about it. I am happy that it was successful.”

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Serina Calhoun has worked as an architect in San Francisco for 21 years and has faced plenty of headache-inducing projects, but the renovation of a Bernal Heights fixer-upper that she took on in 2020 stands out as truly atrocious.

Many of the city’s worst story lines converged at the seemingly cursed house, leaving Calhoun and the home’s owners slack-jawed by all the plot twists.

It involves insanely high real estate prices. Byzantine planning codes that even the city’s planners find confusing. Neighbors who demand a say in any change near them. Squatters, drugs and vandalism. Police officers who blame the district attorney as they let criminals go. A pricey private security guard. And heaps of frustration.

Sounds like San Francisco, alright.

“This is a whole other level of crazy,” Calhoun said.

It all began in October 2020 when Jennifer Sun and her husband, Ben, purchased a house in Bernal Heights for $1.75 million. In most parts of the country, that would buy a stunning mansion. In San Francisco, it buys a rather dated fixer-upper.

The couple are wealthy, and nobody but them will shed any tears over their home remodel gone awry. Still, what happened next points to what’s broken in San Francisco — and so much is broken.

A sticker, writing on the refrigerator and a sign are some of the damage left over from squatters who trespassed and lived in the home of a Bernal Heights couple.

Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle

The couple hired Calhoun to design a remodel, submitted their plans in March 2021 and hoped to secure permits within six months. They kept paying rent on their South of Market apartment so they could live there during the remodel, while also paying their new mortgage.

But six months turned into 12 months — and still, no permits.

The first hiccup was that the Planning Department said the home had been illegally converted into three units by a previous owner, and the couple wanted to restore it to its original single-family home set-up.

After some back and forth, the Planning Department said the plan was allowable because there was no record of any tenants ever living there.

Dan Sider, chief of staff for the Planning Department, said planners were ready to approve the plans including major interior work in July 2021, but then the couple submitted a proposal with a new wrinkle: extending the back of their home by just under 3 feet . That would make the back of the house even since the third story juts out beyond the lower two.

But this being San Francisco, and especially Bernal Heights, that seemingly small change is a very big deal. That’s because of a “special use district” approved by the Board of Supervisors in 1991 that governs every little change to homes in the neighborhood. The idea was to preserve the area’s character, but the details will make your eyes glaze over and, according to Calhoun, have prompted many architects in the city to refuse to work there.

In sections and subsections to subsections, it governs changes to homes in minute detail — down to the allowable width of curb cuts and garage doors.

“I can assure you that it is not a page-turner,” Sider said good-naturedly.

Jennifer Sun stands below two holes in the ceiling of her home, part of the damage from squatters. She and her husband have had to hire private security while they wait for permits to remodel their new home.

Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

A group of neighbors called the Bernal Heights East Slope Design Review Board — with no apparent website or easy way to find them — gets to weigh in on projects in the area. An email sent to an address associated with the group was not returned.

The rules include the length of a home can extend into the backyard from the front of its property line. But because the couple’s house sits on a curved lot, Calhoun’s been trying to get an answer on where on the front lot to start measuring from. She said she waited until November just to get a planner assigned and has spoken to four different planners about the 3-foot extension, and that none knows the answer.

“They shared that the code is confusing even for them,” she said.

Then, the planner told Calhoun the home was historic and the facade — though nondescript — could not be altered. Sorting that out would have extended the project by another six to nine months, Calhoun said, so the couple dropped proposed changes to the front.

Then things got really weird.

In February, Calhoun received an email from a member of the Bernal Heights East Slope Design Review Board who reported a neighbor across the street from the couple’s home had grown “increasingly agitated” by the couple’s lifestyle and the cars coming and going from the home at every hour.

Sun said she was shocked. They weren’t living there. What cars? What lifestyle?

So they visited the property, which had weird spray paint across the garage door and signs of people inside. They called police, who accompanied them inside the house where they found squatters had taken it over.

Photos the couple took show piles of furniture, clothes and a fridge full of food. Graffiti covers the refrigerator and walls. One message can’t be relayed in full because of antigay language, but it reads in part, “No soliciting. No shopping. No snitches.” They bashed holes in the walls and ceilings, wrecked a sink and other fixtures, left dog poop on the carpets and discarded needles and syringe caps around the house. Flies were everywhere. The house still smells bad.

According to the couple, police officers gave the squatters — all of whom appeared high — 10 minutes to collect their belongings and leave. They arrested only one. No one else faced any consequences. The couple said police explained there was nothing they could do because District Attorney Chesa Boudin “has different priorities right now” and wouldn’t prosecute.

Salar Naderi, a spokesperson with the Police Department, confirmed police found seven people occupying the house and arrested Richard Ostergard, 47, who had warrants for stealing a vehicle, possession of stolen property and theft. Naderi said the homeowners “did not want to have any of the (other) subjects cited or arrested,” disputing the couple’s version.

In any case, Sun, 36, said that just a few hours later, neighbors texted and called to tell her the squatters were back. And it doesn’t sound like they’re merely people down on their luck. Photos show nice belongings, and neighbors reported them driving a Mercedes, BMW and Dodge Durango.

Neighbors continued to report to the couple that people were entering the home over the next couple of days, and that someone tried to access the property with a crowbar.

The couple quickly hired a private security guard whom they’re paying $8,000 a month to watch over the house every night.

“If we had known the city would take so long, we would have moved in and this wouldn’t be an issue,” Sun said.

Even though they’re doing well professionally, the couple said the costs have created “an immense financial impact” — and work hasn’t even started yet. Mortgage payments and property taxes on the house have topped $180,000 so far. They paid $3,000 to haul away the squatters’ belongings and don’t know yet how much it will cost to repair their damage.

Meanwhile, construction costs keep growing because of inflation and supply chain shortages, and there’s no telling how much the remodel will end up costing or when they can finally start.

“How does anyone afford this?” Sun asked.

Sun said she’s no longer excited about moving in after the remodel — which she thinks won’t be done for another year at best.

“It totally creeps me out,” she said. “Just unlocking the door, I get goose bumps. It’s uncomfortable being in here. It’s so unnerving. This is supposed to be home.”

This being San Francisco, there is one bit of good news for the couple. Redfin says their dream home turned nightmare is now worth more than $2 million.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Sundays and Wednesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf

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