CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Viewers contacted Channel 9 after they saw squatters moving into a home on Cloister Drive near Providence and Fairview roads.
Squatters claim to have rights to move in, which often makes it a challenge for police to kick them out.
Reporter Mark Becker knocked on the door of the home, worth nearly $1 million, on Wednesday.
“My name is Mark Becker,” he told the occupant who answered. “I just wanted to ask, what brings you to the house here? Do you have papers to move in?”
The man was polite, but he never said his name or what gave him the right to move in overnight.
“Do you own (the house?)” Becker asked. “Do you have the paperwork? Do you have the legal paperwork to be here?”
“No comment,” the man said.
A few minutes later, a woman standing next to him bristled when Becker suggested they might be squatters.
“For me, that's almost like me asking you about your personal business and your paperwork and coming to your home and saying, ‘Do you live here?' she said.
Neighbors were stunned about what the family was doing.
“It (doesn’t) belong to them,” Charlie Bones said. “It's like me saying, ‘I'm going to live in a house in Morrocroft. I don't belong there. I don't belong there."
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Police and a woman who works for a real estate company went to the home where the squatters were staying Wednesday morning.
“So, we don't know if the house has been broken into -- if someone kicked the door in or not,” the police officer said.
The real estate company told police they wanted to charge the family with trespassing. The family started moving out about 30 minutes later.
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