There’s nothing like finding your dream home.

And in Portland’s Southeast neighborhood, surely someone’s future dream home has just been listed on the market. It has it all: two bedrooms, three baths, a rustic fireplace, a spacious loft, and the quaint charm that comes with its 1940s provenance. There’s just a slight catch.

“Unfortunately there are squatters on the property and seller does not have resources to remove them and is willing to negotiate the price for a buyer to take the risk of closing,” reads the home’s listing on Realtor.com. It’s enough to give any prospective homebuyer pause. It gets even better—the home is listed for $330,000.

Lots of luck.

The home sits at 5256 SE Flavel St. in Portland, Oregon, and the listing features a number of photos that illustrate just what condition the home is in. For one thing, there aren’t any pictures of the inside of the house. And the exterior shots aren’t exactly thrilling, showing huge amounts of trash and debris strewn about the backyard, along with broken-down cars in the driveway.

And it’s not just the squatters in the listed house that are the problem. The aerial shots clearly show that the neighboring property is also a den of squatters, with a backyard full of garbage. So even if the new owners manage to evict the unwelcome occupants and clean the place up, they’ve still got the next-door basket case to deal with.

The local station KGW8 reports that the neighborhood has been plagued with squatters and homeless drifters who are making the most of the vacant homes. Meanwhile, crime in the neighborhood has skyrocketed, with those hearty souls still living in the area fearing for their safety—and even going so far as to invest in expensive security systems, barricade doors to their homes, and purchase weapons for self-defense.

“It’s a living nightmare,” Dustin Shannon, a 19-year resident of the neighborhood, told KGW8. “There’s no peace of mind, there is no sleeping well at night—every little noise, I’m jumpy.”

“It just gets worse and worse by the day, more and more of them are showing up,” he added. “Stolen cars are showing up, they’ve got a pile of garbage out back that is taller than me. We’ve barricaded our backdoor at this point, blocked it off. We’re not gun proponents, but we’ve invested in that. We’ve got a security system in place and I keep a bat at both my back and front door.”

It’s just another sign of the times in Portland, and as The Post Millennial reports, residents of the Southeast neighborhood have given up on finding any political solution.

“It’s unbearable to watch your whole city become a dumpster fire,” Annette Benedetti, another neighbor, explained. Violence, drug use, and shootings have increased in the area, to say nothing of burglaries. Meanwhile, some neighbors have combined to break into the vacant homes to retrieve their stolen property—and have discovered revolting conditions, with filth, human waste, pornography, and drug paraphernalia strewn everywhere.

Some of the squatters have even set fire to the homes.

One Redfin.com listing for a home located at the corner of SE Division St and SE 154 Avenue summed it all up: “Squatters caused a fire in downstairs bed and living room. Trash inside home. Squatters now removed. Sellers are selling AS-IS and price is adjusted for that. RM1-Buyer to verify zoning and schools, buyer to do due diligence. Corner lot allows for duplex and possibly triplex. Tear down and build single family, multi-family or restore current home. Major smoke damage through-out. Interior viewing with accepted offer. Ok to drive by and walk around.”

Welcome to life in a Leftist utopia.

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Todd Jaquith

Staff Writer

"Originally from South Florida, Todd Jaquith now lives in sunny Santa Fe, New Mexico. He holds a degree in Anthropology from Florida Atlantic University."

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