Squatters Were Kicked Out of a House in Michigan, and a Neighbor Complained About a Chemical Smell. Criminals With Cash on Them Are Hiding

A Michigan neighborhood is enjoying with tears in their eyes the end of a rough squatter situation that had been going on for over three years and affected their daily lives.

Dowagiac residents were worried about their safety and the safety of their children when a neighbor let a man, his beat-up campers, and all of his friends live in her garden.

Demarco Smith, who lives in Dowagiac, told Fox News Digital over the phone, “When he moved in, he would just start bringing in the trash, old washers and dryers.” “We spend time in our yard. There were always different kinds of people back there since we have a movie house and a bar.

The homeowner died two years after the move. Nobody from her family was able to take back the house and give it to the bank because of Michigan state renter laws. The unwanted people took over the house completely.

“They had no running water, no electricity for about three years,” he said. “He threw away most of the wiring.” He sold the furnace after taking out the copper pipes.

Smith put up a six-foot fence around his yard to keep his wife and daughter away from the constant trouble next door. Smith said that when he put up his fence on his land, some men tried to tear it down, and some pieces of it are still there today.

Smith told them, “We have 14 cameras all around our property.” “I already knew that they did drugs over there.” We couldn’t go outside some days because the wood stove made the air smell like chemicals. There were eight calls to the fire service. They set fire to the shed in the back yard.

Smith said, “My wife and my daughter did not feel safe here – when I was gone, they felt terrified.”

He said the area was a “great neighborhood” and that people there didn’t have any problems with each other or other people on the street until the squatters moved in. Smith said that the cams would sometimes show green smoke coming from the house.

“My daughter plays in the backyard,” he told me. Before she went outside to play, I had to go outside and smell the air. The smell would make us have to leave the outside movie theater and go inside. We thought we were stuck in a corner.

Smith spent $4,500 to protect his family from the illegal activity next door. He got video equipment with a seven-day battery backup, a 120 dB siren as a warning, Apple Watches to watch over the house while Smith and his wife were at work, a fence, and a gun.

“I have people on camera walking in the house with backpacks, and walking out of the house counting money,” he stated. “All the time. They were locked up with cops for six hours last winter, I think in November. They wouldn’t come out of the house when the cops came to look for someone. No one would come out when they said, “Come outside with your hands up.”

After six hours of not being able to sleep, the cops kicked in the door but couldn’t find the person who did it.

“A half an hour later, I got him on camera walking out,” he said. “Sometimes, the police will have issues on the street, and they’ll come right to my house.”

Smith said that he and his wife spent 16 years building their dream home and would not have to leave because of the situation, even though his friends told him to move his family somewhere else.

“To feel like that in your own home, it’s really sad,” he noted. “We would take vacations, but sometimes we wouldn’t go because I felt bad.” We spent many summers at home. We couldn’t have fun because we had to take care of our house. This is something I would never want my worst enemy to go through.

Smith, a DJ from Michigan, talked about how he and his wife watched videos all day, even the ones they missed while they were sleeping. He said that while he was working, he played music for people at the party and watched the cameras at the same time.

Smith said that the cops did everything they could, which included arresting many people and even pulling someone out from under a shed. He thinks the city is to blame for the constant pain the renter and his friends cause.

“You can write people a citation for their grass, and then you have people doing stuff like this and nothing happens,” he added.

Smith says that finally, after years of hard work, the bank was able to get the renter and his friends to leave.

“When he pulled out of there, we were on the front porch crying because we were so happy he left,” he said.

Unfortunately, he packed up and moved his flat-tired, duct-taped campers to a different street in the area. It was Smith’s mother-in-law’s street.

He said, “Now they’re mad over there.”

Smith said the house, which was about 25 miles from Lake Michigan, was for sale, even though the roof had a huge hole in it that was covered with a tarp and wire was missing all over the house. The house doesn’t seem to be for sale on either Zillow or Realtor.com, but both sites say it’s worth more than $100,000.

Smith said, “I’ll give them $15,000 for it.” “I just want to tear it down and have the property.”

The Smith family and the other neighbors are happy now that they have been kicked out, but they are still afraid in case something similar happens again. There are also lingerers who are still coming to the house even though they don’t know the lead squatter has left.

Smith said, “We set up a group chat with the neighbors.” “We tell each other, ‘Hey, this guy is walking, looking suspicious, just a heads-up.’”