March 22, 2024 • 13 mins
Flash Shelton is a man who hunts squatters. When the police can't do anything and politicians have their hands tied, Flash uses his mind and weapons to get squatters out of homes. Find out how he squats the squatters and what kind of weapons he brings along for the ride. Also, what drove Flash Shelton to start the Squatter Hunters in the first place?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
NEWSUNKI dot Com the number one thepodcast in the Southeast on iHeartRadio, and
all you have to do is goto the website and hit subscribe for free
to keep up with what we gotgoing on here on the show. Speaking
of that, it's time to divea little deeper into something we've been talking
about on this show for a littlewhile now, and that is this infuriating
moment when you see that somebody's househas been taken over by a squatter and
(00:24):
then you go imagine that was meand felt helpless, like it's my house,
I own it or my family ownsit, but I can't do anything
about it. I can't get anybodyout of this house. It's living there.
Now. There is a group,from what I could tell, they're
trying to fight back against this,and they are called these squatter hunters,
and Flash Shelton is the man behindthe squatter hunters. Flash. Can you
(00:47):
hear me? Yes? I can? All right there, you're goving me
on. Hey, thanks for beinghere today. Number one, is that
your real name? Flash? Forreal? Since I was a baby,
Ohlash Shelton, you were meant tosquad? Yeah, true right? This
could be a movie and they won'thave to change your name to anything cool
afterwards. Flash Shelton works perfectly.But you're the guy behind this. The
(01:08):
squatter hunters. Tell me how'd youget started? Like, what made you
want to go after people who weresquatting in other people's homes and what got
this all started? Well, Inever wanted to. I wish we didn't
have to deal with things like thisin our country, But you know,
twenty nineteen, after my dad passedaway, a group of squatters, two
(01:32):
women and five men, took overmy mom's two story home in northern California.
I heard that the back door hadbroken it had been broken into,
and I called the sheriff like everyone, and the sheriff went out and said,
hey, the house is full offurniture and it looks like you have
squatters and there's nothing I can do, So you know, I had to.
(01:55):
I was shocked and just blown awaythat this could happen. We were
mourning my father at the time.I had to. I spent a weekend
breaking down squatter laws and rights andfigured out a loop, loopholes and a
system, and I figured that Icould use their rights against them if I
became the squatter. So I hadheard that in many cases they have a
(02:17):
fake lease. So I told mymom that I needed to go do repairs
on the house, and I wantedto lease in my name and took a
lease just in case. And Iwent there and basically scoped it out and
got them out in less than aday. And it's you know, gone
into me fighting for rights and forlaw change and now helping people get their
(02:42):
squatters out. Wow. So yousquatted the squatters, which squatted? They
clearly didn't see coming. This isa new tactic here for them. Now,
how do you combat this in away where because I think, here,
here's how I look at this flash, I say, I understand why
some of these laws exist. Likeif somebody answered an add online that says
that they're running out of place,and they sign a lease and they legitimately
(03:05):
think that they have paid their moneyto the right person, and then they
find out damn it, I gotscrewed over here. You don't want to
you don't want to throw those peopleout in five seconds and just leave them
screwed on the street. But alot of people do pretend to be in
that scenario. From what I canpick up like, there's a lot of
people go, oh, no,I've got this fake lease here. I
swear I paid for this to sortof put themselves as the victims in this
(03:28):
scenario. Are you finding that thereare people who are genuinely getting caught up
in this or most of the peopletend to be squatters who have other,
you know, motives at hand.You know, I mean there are victims
themselves that are caught up in this. And you know, the thing is
that I just feel like, youknow, one victim shouldn't create two victims.
(03:52):
And just like if you receive stolenproperty or a store stolen automobile,
that automobile is taken from you.So they should be relocated and the house
should be given back to the homeowner, regardless of how they were conned.
That's a whole other situation. Theyshould be helping law enforcement go after the
people that con them, but thehomeowners shouldn't be having to lose their home
(04:15):
over it. Yeah. Yeah,it's frustrating for a lot of people to
see. And as part of thesquad hunters or this operation that you've launched
here, I'm picturing like Dog thebounty hunter, you just rush in there.
You get these guys out. Whatare the tactics? What are the
things you can use besides as yousaid, like you can kind of try
to squat in your own house andpush them out. What are the tactics
that use to get the squatters out? So every situation is different, So
(04:40):
I start with a zoom consultation.I ask people to contribute to my cause.
That way, I'll start out.I'll talk to them, I'll figure
out their situation. I'll break itdown, simplify it. In many cases,
I'm just giving advice. In thecases where I go out and take
care of it for them, youknow, we spend a few days,
(05:00):
you know, checking out the property, watching it, doing surveillance, finding
out what their schedule is. Like, I look into who they are,
I find out their criminal background,and then if they're leaving the property,
then I'll just do a change ofpossession. I'll take over the property,
lock them out, force them,you know, to fight to get back
in if they want. But Iuse their rights against them when I become
(05:27):
the squatter or a leaseholder myself.If they never leave the property, then
me and a group of guys willbasically enter the property and everyone will start
putting cameras up, I'll sit downon the couch and basically be like,
this is what your life is goingto be like. Now I'm turning it
into a reality show. I'm goingto expose you to the world. All
(05:48):
right, is this something you doarmed? Because I would imagine that not
everybody who's a squatter would take tothis very nicely. Yes, I'm I'm
fully protected. I'm I'm I'm trainedphysically and mentally, and I'm certified into
(06:10):
the escalation. But I am armedbody armor, you know, firearm,
I have, you know, pepperspray, non lethal, you know,
stun gun, stuff like that.So I am prepared, and I always
go in preparing for the absolute worst. And I don't do this by myself
anymore. In the beginning, Iyou know, I was just going in
(06:30):
by myself, but I make sureI'm protected. But what have you had
in terms of reaction from these squatters? So you go in, You're like,
hey, flash Sheldon of the squatterhunters, we're here to take the
place back. Have you had anypeople who have have freaked out, tried
to fight, tried to do anythinglike that? You know, I mean,
I've just verbal nobody you know,we were pretty intimidating, so and
(06:54):
we're surprising them. They have noidea. You know, I'm I'm surprising
people in the middle of the night, and I'm surprising them. You know,
they have no idea that we're evenlooking at them. So by the
time they realize that we're not likeSWAT or law enforcement or something, because
we're all dressed in black and we'rejust like you know, so it's uh,
(07:15):
you know, I kind of catchthem off guard and surprise helps me.
And then scare that conversation. Doyou get scared that maybe you would
get in trouble for I don't know, impersonating an officer if it comes off
that way to the people you're doingthe sting with, No, not at
all. We're not. We're notshowing in any way that we're law enforcement.
We don't have anything that says that. We don't say that. As
(07:40):
matter of fact, I have lawenforcement working with me in these situations.
The very first thing I do isvisit the department, talk to the supervisors.
One of you know, my bestsupporters is law enforcement. They love
what I'm doing because they want meto change the laws. Yeah, I
mean, I've got it down.I think a lot of people are interested
(08:01):
in seeing some sort of change happenhere. I know that there's been cases
like you with some elderly woman whohad a Hollywood Hills home. Squatters took
over that. There was a nicemansion that they turned into a wild party
house, a place that they usedto produce OnlyFans content like these places get
overrun by folks who are trying tomake a buck and are utilizing these houses
(08:22):
and the laws in their favor totry to get one over on somebody,
and they're not used to running intosomebody like you. For some of these
folks, they end up fighting foryears. We had a story we talked
about flash where and you might remembermore details about this. This guy had
somebody living in his house and Ithink it was like five years. He
could not get them out of hishouse. And it was in California,
(08:46):
and he had to pay for thepower to be on for them because you
can't cut the power off. Iguess you know there's all of these things
that kind of hamper you as ahomeowner when somebody just goes in and takes
your house. Yeah, homeowners arenot allowed to do anything. There are
self help laws, and as you'veseen recently in the news, homeowners will
(09:09):
actually be arrested if they try tokick a squatter out. So one of
the things that's in my favor isthat squatters have rights because I'm actually using
their rights. I'm becoming the swatteror the leaseholder. Homeowners are never presumed
to be the resident, and that'swhy they have no rights. Yeah,
that's unfortunate. Yeah, it's weird, and that's why it leads to so
(09:31):
many of these stories. What arepeople calling you with? What are some
of the stories that they're telling you? Because I know they're going to squatter
hunters dot com and some of thesepeople are at the end of the rope
and they go, I can't getthis person out of my house. I
go there, they don't answer thedoor, They've changed the locks on me,
et cetera, et cetera. Whatare the kind of stories that you're
hearing from people who contact swatter hunters. You know, the craziest one is
(09:54):
the caregiver situation, where caregivers orpeople posing as caregivers will go in and
move in on an elderly person.They've access to the bank accounts, they
drain their bank accounts, and thenthey refuse to leave and basically say,
when you die, I'm taking thishouse. Those are the strangest ones.
But you know the other thing isgoing on vacation, coming home and finding
(10:18):
somebody sleeping on your couch and beingtold that you can't enter your own home,
or a situation like in Hollywood Hillswhere he answers an ad on Craigslist
for a room to rent, goesin with a backpack, sits on the
bed and says, Okay, it'smy room. Thank you. Yeah.
He says, well, what doyou mean, and he says, well,
(10:39):
I'm not leaving. She calls thecops. He puts clothes that were
in the backpack in the closet,and the cops show up and say,
I'm sorry, you have a squatter. We can't do anything. Yeah,
that I would be so fumed.That's going to be extremely like a gut
punch and frustrating for a cop tohave to say that to somebody. I
mean, to hear it is isawful enough, But like to be a
(11:01):
member of law enforcement and be like, your whole reason for doing this job
is to try and help people,to protect and serve and then they have
to go. You know what,this guy's in your house and I can't
get him out of there. Ijust is the law is so stupid that
I have no authority to do sojust sucks. Yeah, I just want
(11:24):
that. You know a lot ofpeople blame law enforcement, but the bottom
line is, you know, wesupport each other, and I believe that.
You know, they they didn't signup their job to have to walk
out with their tail between their legs. Would love to be able to grab
these people by their neck and throwthem out. Is there besides the obvious
free place to stay? Is thereanother benefit? Is there another reason why
(11:48):
people squat? Is it like toto loot the place, to get furniture,
to get copper? Is that yousee a lot of that happening or
is it mostly just straight up thesepeople don't have a place to stay and
now they're they're picking your place.I don't see it as these people don't
have a place to stay at all. I'm seeing it as people looking at
a law and saying, well,it allows me to do it. They're
(12:09):
narcissists, they're self entitled. They'rebasically people that are like, if the
law is going to make it legal, then I'm going to do it.
And they're just figuring out a wayto live rent free. A lot of
these people have regular jobs. Theyleave, they go to work, they
come back. Think about life.If you don't have to pay a mortgage
or rent, how much money canhave in the bank. Yeah, they
just hop from one house to anotherto another. Is there anything that you
(12:31):
could do, Flash, if somebody'slike listening right now and they go all
right, before I approach the squadhunters here, if somebody squat's in your
house while you're gone on vacation orsomething, let's say they change the locks,
if they never leave the house,does that make things much more difficult
for you? Yeah? Yes andno. I mean you know, I
(12:52):
still will figure out a way toget in for me. But as far
as my best advice for the homeowneris call on for Smith first. That's
the first thing you should do.But as soon as they tell you that
there's nothing they can do, contactme and let me assess it and help
you before you go to an attorneyand give them their rights. Gotcha?
(13:13):
All right? That's Flash Shelton fromsquatter hunters dot com. Thank you,
Flash, and go to my YouTubeoutside the box with Flash. All right
outside the box with Sean. I'mgoing to squat your house just so we
can meet. He's gonna bust inwith his crew. There's a frightening feeling
there, all right, good luckout there. Thank you Flash. We'll
see you next time.
NEWSUNKI dot Com the number one thepodcast in the Southeast on iHeartRadio, and
all you have to do is goto the website and hit subscribe for free
to keep up with what we gotgoing on here on the show. Speaking
of that, it's time to divea little deeper into something we've been talking
about on this show for a littlewhile now, and that is this infuriating
moment when you see that somebody's househas been taken over by a squatter and
(00:24):
then you go imagine that was meand felt helpless, like it's my house,
I own it or my family ownsit, but I can't do anything
about it. I can't get anybodyout of this house. It's living there.
Now. There is a group,from what I could tell, they're
trying to fight back against this,and they are called these squatter hunters,
and Flash Shelton is the man behindthe squatter hunters. Flash. Can you
(00:47):
hear me? Yes? I can? All right there, you're goving me
on. Hey, thanks for beinghere today. Number one, is that
your real name? Flash? Forreal? Since I was a baby,
Ohlash Shelton, you were meant tosquad? Yeah, true right? This
could be a movie and they won'thave to change your name to anything cool
afterwards. Flash Shelton works perfectly.But you're the guy behind this. The
(01:08):
squatter hunters. Tell me how'd youget started? Like, what made you
want to go after people who weresquatting in other people's homes and what got
this all started? Well, Inever wanted to. I wish we didn't
have to deal with things like thisin our country, But you know,
twenty nineteen, after my dad passedaway, a group of squatters, two
(01:32):
women and five men, took overmy mom's two story home in northern California.
I heard that the back door hadbroken it had been broken into,
and I called the sheriff like everyone, and the sheriff went out and said,
hey, the house is full offurniture and it looks like you have
squatters and there's nothing I can do, So you know, I had to.
(01:55):
I was shocked and just blown awaythat this could happen. We were
mourning my father at the time.I had to. I spent a weekend
breaking down squatter laws and rights andfigured out a loop, loopholes and a
system, and I figured that Icould use their rights against them if I
became the squatter. So I hadheard that in many cases they have a
(02:17):
fake lease. So I told mymom that I needed to go do repairs
on the house, and I wantedto lease in my name and took a
lease just in case. And Iwent there and basically scoped it out and
got them out in less than aday. And it's you know, gone
into me fighting for rights and forlaw change and now helping people get their
(02:42):
squatters out. Wow. So yousquatted the squatters, which squatted? They
clearly didn't see coming. This isa new tactic here for them. Now,
how do you combat this in away where because I think, here,
here's how I look at this flash, I say, I understand why
some of these laws exist. Likeif somebody answered an add online that says
that they're running out of place,and they sign a lease and they legitimately
(03:05):
think that they have paid their moneyto the right person, and then they
find out damn it, I gotscrewed over here. You don't want to
you don't want to throw those peopleout in five seconds and just leave them
screwed on the street. But alot of people do pretend to be in
that scenario. From what I canpick up like, there's a lot of
people go, oh, no,I've got this fake lease here. I
swear I paid for this to sortof put themselves as the victims in this
(03:28):
scenario. Are you finding that thereare people who are genuinely getting caught up
in this or most of the peopletend to be squatters who have other,
you know, motives at hand.You know, I mean there are victims
themselves that are caught up in this. And you know, the thing is
that I just feel like, youknow, one victim shouldn't create two victims.
(03:52):
And just like if you receive stolenproperty or a store stolen automobile,
that automobile is taken from you.So they should be relocated and the house
should be given back to the homeowner, regardless of how they were conned.
That's a whole other situation. Theyshould be helping law enforcement go after the
people that con them, but thehomeowners shouldn't be having to lose their home
(04:15):
over it. Yeah. Yeah,it's frustrating for a lot of people to
see. And as part of thesquad hunters or this operation that you've launched
here, I'm picturing like Dog thebounty hunter, you just rush in there.
You get these guys out. Whatare the tactics? What are the
things you can use besides as yousaid, like you can kind of try
to squat in your own house andpush them out. What are the tactics
that use to get the squatters out? So every situation is different, So
(04:40):
I start with a zoom consultation.I ask people to contribute to my cause.
That way, I'll start out.I'll talk to them, I'll figure
out their situation. I'll break itdown, simplify it. In many cases,
I'm just giving advice. In thecases where I go out and take
care of it for them, youknow, we spend a few days,
(05:00):
you know, checking out the property, watching it, doing surveillance, finding
out what their schedule is. Like, I look into who they are,
I find out their criminal background,and then if they're leaving the property,
then I'll just do a change ofpossession. I'll take over the property,
lock them out, force them,you know, to fight to get back
in if they want. But Iuse their rights against them when I become
(05:27):
the squatter or a leaseholder myself.If they never leave the property, then
me and a group of guys willbasically enter the property and everyone will start
putting cameras up, I'll sit downon the couch and basically be like,
this is what your life is goingto be like. Now I'm turning it
into a reality show. I'm goingto expose you to the world. All
(05:48):
right, is this something you doarmed? Because I would imagine that not
everybody who's a squatter would take tothis very nicely. Yes, I'm I'm
fully protected. I'm I'm I'm trainedphysically and mentally, and I'm certified into
(06:10):
the escalation. But I am armedbody armor, you know, firearm,
I have, you know, pepperspray, non lethal, you know,
stun gun, stuff like that.So I am prepared, and I always
go in preparing for the absolute worst. And I don't do this by myself
anymore. In the beginning, Iyou know, I was just going in
(06:30):
by myself, but I make sureI'm protected. But what have you had
in terms of reaction from these squatters? So you go in, You're like,
hey, flash Sheldon of the squatterhunters, we're here to take the
place back. Have you had anypeople who have have freaked out, tried
to fight, tried to do anythinglike that? You know, I mean,
I've just verbal nobody you know,we were pretty intimidating, so and
(06:54):
we're surprising them. They have noidea. You know, I'm I'm surprising
people in the middle of the night, and I'm surprising them. You know,
they have no idea that we're evenlooking at them. So by the
time they realize that we're not likeSWAT or law enforcement or something, because
we're all dressed in black and we'rejust like you know, so it's uh,
(07:15):
you know, I kind of catchthem off guard and surprise helps me.
And then scare that conversation. Doyou get scared that maybe you would
get in trouble for I don't know, impersonating an officer if it comes off
that way to the people you're doingthe sting with, No, not at
all. We're not. We're notshowing in any way that we're law enforcement.
We don't have anything that says that. We don't say that. As
(07:40):
matter of fact, I have lawenforcement working with me in these situations.
The very first thing I do isvisit the department, talk to the supervisors.
One of you know, my bestsupporters is law enforcement. They love
what I'm doing because they want meto change the laws. Yeah, I
mean, I've got it down.I think a lot of people are interested
(08:01):
in seeing some sort of change happenhere. I know that there's been cases
like you with some elderly woman whohad a Hollywood Hills home. Squatters took
over that. There was a nicemansion that they turned into a wild party
house, a place that they usedto produce OnlyFans content like these places get
overrun by folks who are trying tomake a buck and are utilizing these houses
(08:22):
and the laws in their favor totry to get one over on somebody,
and they're not used to running intosomebody like you. For some of these
folks, they end up fighting foryears. We had a story we talked
about flash where and you might remembermore details about this. This guy had
somebody living in his house and Ithink it was like five years. He
could not get them out of hishouse. And it was in California,
(08:46):
and he had to pay for thepower to be on for them because you
can't cut the power off. Iguess you know there's all of these things
that kind of hamper you as ahomeowner when somebody just goes in and takes
your house. Yeah, homeowners arenot allowed to do anything. There are
self help laws, and as you'veseen recently in the news, homeowners will
(09:09):
actually be arrested if they try tokick a squatter out. So one of
the things that's in my favor isthat squatters have rights because I'm actually using
their rights. I'm becoming the swatteror the leaseholder. Homeowners are never presumed
to be the resident, and that'swhy they have no rights. Yeah,
that's unfortunate. Yeah, it's weird, and that's why it leads to so
(09:31):
many of these stories. What arepeople calling you with? What are some
of the stories that they're telling you? Because I know they're going to squatter
hunters dot com and some of thesepeople are at the end of the rope
and they go, I can't getthis person out of my house. I
go there, they don't answer thedoor, They've changed the locks on me,
et cetera, et cetera. Whatare the kind of stories that you're
hearing from people who contact swatter hunters. You know, the craziest one is
(09:54):
the caregiver situation, where caregivers orpeople posing as caregivers will go in and
move in on an elderly person.They've access to the bank accounts, they
drain their bank accounts, and thenthey refuse to leave and basically say,
when you die, I'm taking thishouse. Those are the strangest ones.
But you know the other thing isgoing on vacation, coming home and finding
(10:18):
somebody sleeping on your couch and beingtold that you can't enter your own home,
or a situation like in Hollywood Hillswhere he answers an ad on Craigslist
for a room to rent, goesin with a backpack, sits on the
bed and says, Okay, it'smy room. Thank you. Yeah.
He says, well, what doyou mean, and he says, well,
(10:39):
I'm not leaving. She calls thecops. He puts clothes that were
in the backpack in the closet,and the cops show up and say,
I'm sorry, you have a squatter. We can't do anything. Yeah,
that I would be so fumed.That's going to be extremely like a gut
punch and frustrating for a cop tohave to say that to somebody. I
mean, to hear it is isawful enough, But like to be a
(11:01):
member of law enforcement and be like, your whole reason for doing this job
is to try and help people,to protect and serve and then they have
to go. You know what,this guy's in your house and I can't
get him out of there. Ijust is the law is so stupid that
I have no authority to do sojust sucks. Yeah, I just want
(11:24):
that. You know a lot ofpeople blame law enforcement, but the bottom
line is, you know, wesupport each other, and I believe that.
You know, they they didn't signup their job to have to walk
out with their tail between their legs. Would love to be able to grab
these people by their neck and throwthem out. Is there besides the obvious
free place to stay? Is thereanother benefit? Is there another reason why
(11:48):
people squat? Is it like toto loot the place, to get furniture,
to get copper? Is that yousee a lot of that happening or
is it mostly just straight up thesepeople don't have a place to stay and
now they're they're picking your place.I don't see it as these people don't
have a place to stay at all. I'm seeing it as people looking at
a law and saying, well,it allows me to do it. They're
(12:09):
narcissists, they're self entitled. They'rebasically people that are like, if the
law is going to make it legal, then I'm going to do it.
And they're just figuring out a wayto live rent free. A lot of
these people have regular jobs. Theyleave, they go to work, they
come back. Think about life.If you don't have to pay a mortgage
or rent, how much money canhave in the bank. Yeah, they
just hop from one house to anotherto another. Is there anything that you
(12:31):
could do, Flash, if somebody'slike listening right now and they go all
right, before I approach the squadhunters here, if somebody squat's in your
house while you're gone on vacation orsomething, let's say they change the locks,
if they never leave the house,does that make things much more difficult
for you? Yeah? Yes andno. I mean you know, I
(12:52):
still will figure out a way toget in for me. But as far
as my best advice for the homeowneris call on for Smith first. That's
the first thing you should do.But as soon as they tell you that
there's nothing they can do, contactme and let me assess it and help
you before you go to an attorneyand give them their rights. Gotcha?
(13:13):
All right? That's Flash Shelton fromsquatter hunters dot com. Thank you,
Flash, and go to my YouTubeoutside the box with Flash. All right
outside the box with Sean. I'mgoing to squat your house just so we
can meet. He's gonna bust inwith his crew. There's a frightening feeling
there, all right, good luckout there. Thank you Flash. We'll
see you next time.
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