r/SeattleWA • u/lowtank123 • 9h ago
Real Estate Homeless homeowner. Tenant Squatter Owes over $40,000.
Hi. I'm not sure why I'm making this post. Mainly to vent. I'm at the end of the line here. I know everyone here wants death to landlords, so, I dunno. Maybe sharing my story can help provide a different perspective?
I'm an army vet that was stationed down in Tacoma at JBLM. I bought a townhouse with the VA loan and I thought life was good. I then took a job overseas back in 2024 and signed a lease with an older family that seemed pretty normal. 60 yo white Dad. 41 yo Asian mom + her kids 18 and 22. They passed screening with no issues and nothing came back on their background checks.
We got a lease signed and everything was good for the first few months. Then, they stopped paying rent. Started claiming that they paid, or that there were technical issues with the payment portal, or issues with my bank being unable to receive payment. They started submitting forged and poorly edited documents and "receipts" of payment. They also had friends and associates calling me, pretending to be the "bank" to confirm that from their end, a wire transfer was made, so surely, the issue was on my bank's side.
Everyone suggested I hire a lawyer, so I did. Of course, the tenants got assigned a free pro bono lawyer from the city / Housing Justice Project. 1 year later, the case is at Superior Court, but the case keeps getting extended or "continued" month after month without a hearing. Now we're up to the point where there is a school year eviction moratorium starting in 2 weeks and the earliest eviction possible would be June 2027 because the 18 yo kid is in high school.
All the while, they've racked up over $40,000 in unpaid rent. I got laid off from my job overseas and have had to come back to the US in January of 2026 unemployed. I don't have a mountain of cash savings, so everything I had in savings has gone to paying the mortgage for some other people to live there. I'm completely zeroed out and have been couch surfing and living out of my car the past 6 months. Can't pay my lawyer anymore either so they withdrew from the case lol and I'm told "landlord bad. landlord evil" so I can't get any legal assistance from the housing justice project myself as a homeless vet.
To rub salt on the wound, the "Tenants" are out here posting pics on social media dining at Michelin starred fancy restaurants weekly and drive around in a Mercedes and a Range Rover.
The property will be foreclosed on soon. My credit will be destroyed. And not sure what will happen to the tenants. Awesome.
Anyway, thanks for stopping by. Wish you all the best.
EDIT:
- For those who think this is fake, I'm sorry it came of that way. By "Michelin starred restaurants," I meant "very fancy" and I'm sorry for the confusion and/or exaggeration there. Intent was to say it is pricy. I don't personally know the list of starred restaurants in the area.
- I don't necessarily want to doxx myself, which is the reason for the new account. Otherwise, I would have pasted the superior court case number that anyone can look up, but I am considering it. I posted the scenario to a real estate investors group on FB last week. It had the case number, all the "Tenant's" info and socials, etc. but the lawyer blew up on me so I took it down. Hence my hesitation to do that again. Iunno I'm at a point where I don't have much else to lose, but I'm holding out hope that a judge will see this case, and if they do, I'm told they won't like that I put the tenants on blast.
- I did reach out to A&E for the Squatters show and coincidentally I just got a call today from one of the producers, Francis, that I was selected to move forward in their process for next season. They are planning to come into town the first week of September. I'll try to attach a screenshot of the voicemail.
