One homeowner addressed the spectacular failure of the legal system to remove a professional squatter from his family home by implementing his own style of commonsense justice to turn the tables on the squatter.  Now a folk hero on YouTube, Flash Shelton filmed the process of his own informal eviction process of the grifter team — mother and adult daughter — who were set up for a long and cozy stay in his family home.

Initially, he was told by the local authorities to "go through the courts" because "there was nothing they could do," Shelton recalled in the YouTube clip.

The option to subject himself to a protracted legal system didn't appeal to Shelton.  He is a handyman by profession and used to getting the job done by himself.

Instead, he drove from his home in Nevada to his mother's home in Northern California.  He simply waited patiently in his jeep for the mother-and-daughter team to exit the family home and make their way to their vehicles parked in his mother's driveway.

"I was completely shocked," Shelton recalled when the occupants left and he entered his mother's home.  "The house was crammed full of furniture and [oversized] moving boxes," all of which appear in his short film.

When the grifter team returned, Shelton matter-of-factly informed them that he had installed cameras in the house, held a lease in his hand between himself and his mother, and that they would need to remove their belongings in the next 24 hours, or he would remove the squatters' personal possessions for them.

It wasn't too surprising that the squatters lacked a fundamental awareness of the situation and asked Shelton for assistance in moving.  They wanted to know whether the movers he had planned to employ (for their removal) could help them in the process of leaving.

There wasn't any mention of the grifter team compensating the movers.

The squatters did manage to vacate the property by the next day.

More than two million viewers have clicked onto Shelton's "how to handle squatters" video, and they may learn a thing or two about Yankee ingenuity.

His refusal to be packed inside a legal box has proven most useful and was reflected in his view of this burgeoning class of criminals: "They're the squatter[s], and they have rights.  Well, then, if I become the squatter on the squatters, then I should have rights.  Right?"

This may not qualify as an airtight legal case, but it saved Shelton from the gut-wrenching ordeal of watching his hard-earned dollars frittered away by an inept legal system.  Most squatters — especially in "progressive" states — count on at least 45 to 75 days to enjoy a free stay until the wheels of justice churn at an excruciatingly slow pace to remove them from a domicile.

The epic failure of the legal system is best exemplified by Long Island squatter Guramrit Hanspal, who holds the record for remaining in a home — without payment — for a mind-boggling 20 years.  To be fair, Hanspal made one payment at the start of his occupancy when he bought the home in 1998.  He deftly abused the court system with cleverly filing seven bankruptcies, which accounts for the "automatic stay rule," and his most spectacular display of corruption was to file three lawsuits against the banks in possession of his unpaid mortgage.

This quagmire wouldn't be complete without mentioning that Hanspal transferred ownership of the home (that he doesn't own) to other individuals, who also filed bankruptcy to extend the free stay.

Such horror stories are prompting Shelton and others to take matters into their own hands.  Do they really want to depend on a legal system that will even "provide a squatter with a free attorney and demand for a jury trial,"  according to the Wall Street Journal?  This measure was passed in California, the very state where Shelton confronted his squatter.

Now the media are starting to report on a trickle of stories about disgusted landlords deciding on their own course of justice when confronting squatters living in their homes without payment or permission.  The landlords are now waiting for the right moment to change the locks, remove the belongings, and proceed with the informal eviction.

Squatters may not like having the tables turned on them.  But they, too, could exercise their rights and attempt to further extort the system in court.

Image: New York Public Library.