Squatter nightmare turns DC apartment building into 'drug haven' as legal battle drags on: 'There's no help'
WASHINGTON, D.C. — FIRST ON FOX: As Washington, D.C., grapples with a persistent squatting problem, one resident in the nation's capital is speaking out about how unwelcome tenants have turned her life upside down, terrorizing her neighborhood while the city stands by and does nothing.
"I lived in several countries, including Third World countries, but it seems to me that I’m living in a Fourth World country in D.C.," Tatyana Day Velasquez, who owns a small three-unit building in Columbia Heights, told Fox News Digital.
"I’ve never seen something like it. There’s no accountability for what goes on. Everybody just throws the ball to each other, and there’s no help. So how can somebody resolve a problem like mine if you don’t get help?"
For a tumultuous eight months, Velasquez said her property's basement apartment has been overrun by strangers who refuse to leave and live rent-free with no consequences in sight.
Hidden behind a makeshift barricade built with trash cans and bricks, Velasquez said the apartment has transformed into a "drug haven," with unfamiliar faces pouring in and out in the night, constant fights breaking out, and a chemical odor seeping through the building. Photos and videos provided by Velasquez show a disheveled apartment littered with needles and drug pipes, as well as Narcan, fentanyl test strips, a machete and guns.
"They don't pay rent," she said. "I mean they're making money by drug dealing, obviously."
The dispute has since landed in D.C. Superior Court, where Velasquez is fighting to reclaim the basement apartment, arguing the courts are "overfilled with situations like mine."
Court documents show that Velasquez discovered other people had taken over her apartment after the previous tenant told her he moved out. Despite one of the men claiming the tenant gave him a key, the lease explicitly states unauthorized occupants, subletting and drug-related criminal activity are prohibited.
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Three separate tenants ultimately fled and vacated the building amid safety concerns, with one of the tenants telling Velasquez she "no longer feels safe enough to sleep here," according to court documents.
With the men never receiving approval and not paying rent, Velasquez argued this was enough reason to have them removed from the building.
"How could that be possible?" she said. "They are not guests. They're not invitees. This property is not a business. So, they are not implied consent to get inside, they are trespassers."
Police records tell a more complicated story. A June 26 Metropolitan Police Department report said one of the occupants had "established residency" by living with a tenant on the lease and therefore could not simply be removed, so police treated it as a landlord-tenant dispute and made no arrests.
Under D.C. law, property owners generally cannot remove occupants themselves and instead must go through D.C. Superior Court, a process that can take months in some cases. D.C.'s Office of the Tenant Advocate says occupants must be given an opportunity to challenge a property owner's claims in court before an eviction can be carried out.
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"I believe this is predatory tactics, and I also believe that by letting squatters have rights, it's a violation of the Fourth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment because you no longer have private property," Velasquez said. "The government decides what your property is going to be used as."
But the bills never stopped coming, according to Velasquez, including D.C. property taxes and trash violations connected to the debris left behind by squatters.
"I'm not making any income from the property and, as a matter of fact, I'm still being charged taxes from the D.C. government," Velasquez said.
Velasquez has now taken it upon herself to manage the chaos, driving to the building daily to confront the alleged squatters as her cries for help fall on deaf ears.
"I have to go there every day because, you know, I haven't received much help from the police and the neighbors are tired of it," she said.
The confrontations with the squatter have turned physical multiple times, according to Velasquez, who said has received pushback from the police over her continued calls reporting the squatter.
"I've been assaulted like a couple of times and there's nothing I can do because I'm responsible for the property and for the safety of other tenants," Velasquez said.
One neighbor said the incident sends a troubling message about D.C.'s priorities.
"You say you want to protect women," Lloyd, Velasquez's neighbor, told Fox News Digital. "You're so against domestic violence, you're against this and that, but then you turn around and do something like this."
The disturbances have even spread beyond the property, Lloyd said, with neighbors passing by also being antagonized.
"The way I see it, it's a domino effect, and it's an entitled domino effect, and it is an audacity thing," Lloyd said.
The ongoing legal battle is shining a spotlight on D.C.'s controversial approach to alleged squatters, with property owners left with few options while eviction proceedings play out in court and bills continue to pile up.
Lloyd said the effects of squatting can ripple through entire neighborhoods.
"It's like one negative thing permeates another negative thing, so you become a fungus in the neighborhood with nuclear waste attached to you," Lloyd said.
A D.C. police spokesperson told Fox News Digital MPD’s authority is limited once someone has established residency at a property, adding that officers can respond to calls, investigate alleged crimes and make arrests when they find probable cause, but they cannot simply remove an established resident because a property owner considers the person unauthorized.
Evictions and questions about possession have to go through D.C. Superior Court, with the U.S. Marshals responsible for carrying out court-ordered evictions. The spokesperson said the underlying problem is largely a matter of D.C. law and that any legislative change would fall to the D.C. Council.
"Squatting is not primarily a housing policy problem; it is a property-rights enforcement problem," John Gibbs, Director of the Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital. "The core failure is that lawful owners often face greater burdens recovering their property than unauthorized occupants face taking possession of it. The solution is restoring the presumption that ownership matters. Expedited removal procedures, stronger anti-fraud penalties, faster courts, and clearer authority for law enforcement could significantly reduce squatting while preserving protections for legitimate tenants."
Gibbs pointed to a combination of factors he believes has fueled the growth of squatting in recent years, including the lingering effects of COVID-era eviction moratoriums, which expanded government involvement in landlord-tenant disputes and made removing occupants more difficult and uncertain. He argued those moratoriums helped foster an environment in which occupancy rights were increasingly weighed against property owners’ rights.
Additionally, Gibbs pointed to a growing reluctance among authorities to treat unauthorized occupancy as a property-rights issue, along with changes in policing and prosecution that he said have weakened deterrence. At the same time, he said social media has made it easier for would-be squatters to learn how to exploit eviction procedures, pointing to reports of fake leases, online tutorials and organized schemes that have made the tactics easier to replicate.
Fox News Digital reached out to multiple members and committees of the D.C. City Council for comment.
The mayor's office declined to comment.
Last week, the U.S. Marshalls served an eviction at the property, and one of the squatters was also arrested for violating the protective order on the location, but the problem has not been resolved as he and his acquaintances have returned to the property multiple times, Velasquez says. Additionally, Velasquez says her protective order has been dismissed due to clerical errors in the courts.
For Velasquez, the dispute is one of many "horror stories" facing DC property owners that have been reported in local media over the past few years with no resolution in sight.
"These small landlords cannot survive in D.C.," Velasquez said. "I don't know what the end game is from the city, but they don't care about the small guys, the small landlords."
Fox News Digital reached out to the alleged squatter for comment but did not receive a response.