An Airbnb host in unincorporated El Cajon says three people took over a home on her family’s six-acre ranch, claimed they had established legal tenancy, and demanded $30,000 to leave, forcing her to seek help from a private company known as the Squatter Squad after deputies initially described the dispute as a civil matter.
ABC 10 News investigative reporter Austin Grabish reported that property owner Grace Young had been renting the house to a vacation guest before the takeover began in June. According to Young, the guest had violated several house rules before leaving, and three people moved into the home the following day without her permission.
The case eventually ended with deputies executing a search warrant and arresting the two remaining occupants, but only after Young spent weeks gathering documents, surveillance footage, and other evidence to convince authorities that the people inside were trespassers rather than lawful tenants.
Three People Moved In After the Airbnb Guest Left
Young told Grabish that the original Airbnb guest had brought unapproved visitors and dogs to the property while also violating the rental’s sound curfew, leading to the guest being removed from the platform.
The day after that person left, Young said three strangers moved into the home and began claiming that the former guest had given them permission to stay.
“They manufactured some narrative that they had the right to be in the home because an Airbnb guest had given them that permission,” Young told ABC 10.
She said she had never met or seen the occupants before they took control of the property, which she had purchased in part to create a farm experience for her grandchildren.
Instead of using the ranch for her family and rental business, Young found herself locked out of a house she owned while the people inside covered the windows and blocked entrances with heavy furniture, including a piano and a large armoire.
“The whole situation just crushed me,” Young said. “I reached a point where I had no idea what to do and felt extremely helpless and beyond frustrated.”
Deputies Initially Called It a Civil Matter
Young contacted the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office expecting the occupants to be removed, but she said a responding junior officer told her they would be allowed to remain because the dispute was considered civil.
According to Young, the officer told her over speakerphone, “We’re letting them go. It’s a civil matter.”
Grabish explained that this is the kind of response many alleged squatters rely on, since officers are often reluctant to decide at the scene whether someone is a tenant with legal protections or a trespasser who can be removed immediately.
In California, where eviction rules can be complicated and time-consuming, that uncertainty can leave property owners facing months of legal proceedings even when they insist the occupants never had permission to live there.
Young rejected the idea that the people in her home should be treated as normal tenants, calling the incident more like a hostile takeover that had also shut down her rental business.
The distinction between a tenant dispute and alleged criminal trespassing became the center of the case, because the answer determined whether Young would have to begin a lengthy eviction or could ask law enforcement to remove the occupants through a criminal investigation.
The Occupants Demanded $30,000 to Leave
After deputies departed, Young said the occupants placed notices in the windows claiming they had stayed long enough to become month-to-month tenants under California law.
The documents warned Young that she could not lock them out or remove them without following the formal eviction process, and the occupants allegedly demanded $30,000 in exchange for leaving voluntarily.
That demand left Young feeling that the people inside were using the uncertainty surrounding tenant law as leverage against her.
The situation is particularly troubling because the dispute was not merely about unpaid rent or the end of a lease. Young maintained that she had never rented the property to these occupants at all, yet she was being told that removing them could require months in court unless she paid a large sum.
While the people inside claimed legal rights, Young continued losing rental income and feared additional damage to the house.
She eventually found the Squatter Squad, a private company that specializes in helping property owners document cases and convince law enforcement that occupants should be treated as trespassers rather than tenants.
The Squatter Squad Built a Case
Squatter Squad founder Lando Thomas told Grabish that his company receives several calls a day during busy periods in Southern California, often from homeowners who have already spent large amounts of money trying to recover their properties.
Thomas said some clients have spent more than $100,000 on eviction cases without getting the occupants removed, while his team has sometimes resolved similar disputes in two or three months.
The company’s approach is centered on documentation. In Young’s case, the team gathered notarized records, her property deed, surveillance footage, and court information connected to the people staying in the house.
Thomas said the goal was to show authorities that the occupants had no legitimate tenancy and should instead be investigated as trespassers.
He advised property owners to keep digital or notarized copies of their deeds, install security cameras, and avoid allowing a home to look vacant for long periods, since overgrown weeds, dark windows, and other signs can attract people looking for an empty property.
The company’s co-founder, retired military veteran Kimrey Kotchick, said the group also conducts background checks and works with negotiators and a bounty hunter who can arrest occupants with active warrants.
Kotchick told ABC 10 that squatters often arrive with fake leases or place their names on utility accounts after posing as new tenants, giving them documents they can show officers during an initial visit.
“Ninety percent of our squatters have the most entitled position,” he said, adding that they frequently insist, “We know our rights.”
A Search Warrant Led to Two Arrests
After the Squatter Squad assembled the evidence, Young returned to the sheriff’s office and again asked for assistance.
This time, she said, Captain Navarro and his team reviewed the case, developed an enforcement plan, obtained a search warrant, and sent roughly 10 or 11 officers to the ranch in less than one business day.
Video from the operation shows deputies ordering the occupants to come to the door with their hands visible before entering the house with weapons drawn.
Twenty days after the takeover began, detectives arrested the two remaining occupants, identified by ABC 10 as Kevin Barlow and Amanda Hopkins, on burglary charges connected to alleged utility theft.
Grabish reported that court records showed both Barlow and Hopkins had multiple unlawful detainer cases in their histories. Barlow had also previously been ordered to have his wages garnished after failing to pay rent at an El Cajon apartment.
Those records did not by themselves prove what happened at Young’s ranch, but they became part of the broader evidence the Squatter Squad collected while trying to establish that the occupants’ claim of lawful tenancy was not credible.
The case demonstrates why documentation can matter so much in these disputes. Young’s ownership was never really the central question; the difficulty was proving quickly enough that the people inside had no valid right to remain.
Young Increased Security After the Takeover
Following the arrests, Young increased security around the ranch and warned other property owners not to give up after being told that an alleged squatting case is only a civil matter.
She said she would recommend contacting the Squatter Squad, even though she believes homeowners should not need a private company to regain control of their own property.
“I don’t think that there should have to be a business called the Squatter Squad,” Young said, while acknowledging that the name sounds almost unbelievable until someone experiences the problem firsthand.
Airbnb told ABC 10 that the occupants were not associated with the platform because the property was no longer operating under an active Airbnb reservation when they moved in.
For Young, however, the takeover was still connected to the earlier guest because she believes that person gave the group access to the house after being removed.
Her experience left her calling for a system that distinguishes more quickly between actual tenants and people who enter a home without the owner’s permission, rather than sending every disputed case into a civil process that can take months or years.
The arrests ended the immediate takeover, but Young’s warning to other owners is that the first response from authorities may not be the final one. In her case, recovering the property required persistence, organized evidence, and outside help before deputies were willing to return with a warrant and remove the people inside.
Raised in a small Arizona town, Kevin grew up surrounded by rugged desert landscapes and a family of hunters. His background in competitive shooting and firearms training has made him an authority on self-defense and gun safety. A certified firearms instructor, Kevin teaches others how to properly handle and maintain their weapons, whether for hunting, home defense, or survival situations. His writing focuses on responsible gun ownership, marksmanship, and the role of firearms in personal preparedness.
