What happens to private property when people who don’t own it move in? At best it’s a kind of theft from people who are paying the bills for the property, but in some cases it’s much worse. A man living south of Portland describes what it has been like for him living in an apartment below another unit that has been occupied by squatters for the past three years.

[Lukas] Porter described living under them as utter chaos with everything from fights and music loud enough to knock the pictures off his walls to gun violence.

“They usually shoot out the windows towards people,” he said.

It became unbearable for Porter when the squatters started flooding the upstairs unit by routinely breaking the water heater. On Monday, a clear tarp funneling water into a trash can took the place of Porter’s kitchen ceiling. It was damage from the most recent flooding. Portland Fire & Rescue said they have responded to Porter’s apartment five times.

“In my living room, water has fallen three times. My bathroom ceiling has fallen through three times. My bedroom has fallen in three times,” Porter said. “The sound of water just brings me so much trauma.”

Porter has also heard fights and women screaming upstairs. Even when KGW went to interview him they could hear someone screaming. He has called the police more times than he can count and they don’t seem to have done anything at all. KGW was able to confirm that fire and rescue had been to his apartment multiple times.

Maybe the most annoying part of this story is that even KGW was afraid to knock on the door upstairs because the squatter residents are considered violent and dangerous. So it seems every part of civil society has just abandoned this poor guy, who was formerly homeless himself. The people upstairs can destroy his life and no one can do anything about it.

KGW aired a similar story last month about a group of homeless squatters who moved into an empty property and wound up setting the house on fire.

“It’s been horrible,” said Jacob Adams, who lives in the house next door. “Explosions and theft and screaming and pounding at 3 o’clock in the morning on the roof.”

In mid-February, a fire at the abandoned property spread to a fence and tree on the adjacent property. Surveillance video showed Adams using a fire extinguisher to save his home. He said it was the fourth fire at the abandoned property.

“While I’m putting the fire out, my wife is hysterical and propane tanks are igniting off within feet from my face. I’m thinking am I going to save my wife and my house and then am I not going to be around or critically injured,” he said.

In both of these situations police are hampered because they can’t arrest anyone without the property owner first stating that the squatters are trespassing. In the case of this house, the owner just hasn’t bothered to do that, leaving police with no options. In the case of the apartment described above, that is now owned by a bank which is trying to auction it off this week. They aren’t going to get involved.

Clearly what ought to happen in a more sane world is laws should be changed to give police more power to deal with violent and destructive squatters who clearly are doing damage to the property and to the neighborhood. But this is Portland so it’s hard to imagine something like that having any chance of happening. Unless squatters take over properties next door to every member of the city council, the progressives will continue to turn a blind eye to whatever the homeless are doing.