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Jun 30, 2008 5:34 pm US/Central
Dallas Powerless Against Some Squatters
DALLAS (CBS 11 News) ―
People living in one Dallas neighborhood say they're being overwhelmed by squatters.
But when they turned to the city for help to clean up a house, they say they were surprised by the response.
The house is on Quinn Street in southeast Dallas. It has no running water and no electricity.
Even so, neighbor Geneva Samford says people are living there. Samford says they're squatters: people who settle on someone else's land without permission to do so.
"A lot of people," said Mary Cole, another neighbor. "So many drug heads."
Samford says the squatters have brought a lot of problems with them. "The odor and the noise at night, and now the rats."
Rats and raw sewage.
The smell is overwhelming.
But the city can do little about it. When we were there on Monday, Dallas City Code Inspectors found a woman inside. We saw two others.
The city's hands are tied because it's not illegal in Dallas to live in a house without running water or electricity. Until the city can find the owner of the house, the people living inside can't be forced out.
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