“Your Airbnb plan is over”: Squatters Move Into Man’s House In The Woods

YouTuber Kanel Joseph says a plan to have a few people watch over a shed he had been building in the woods while he left town for several days turned into a much bigger problem when he returned and found that they appeared to have moved in.

Joseph, who was posting on his Eugene DingleBerry YouTube channel, had spent days constructing the small structure with friends and planned to finish it before a trip to Austin, but what began as an informal arrangement to keep an eye on the place soon left him wondering whether he had accidentally created a squatter situation.

“I told them to watch the place and they moving in like it’s theirs, bro,” Joseph said after returning to the site.

By then, the occupants had brought in dogs, hung curtains, moved belongings inside and added an American flag, while Joseph and his friends were still trying to complete the building they had spent more than a week working on.

A Short-Term Arrangement Quickly Changes

Before leaving town, Joseph and his group were focused on securing the unfinished shed, installing doors and windows, setting up air conditioning and placing trail cameras around the area so they could see whether anyone approached while they were gone.

He initially considered allowing people already staying nearby to temporarily move into the structure so they could watch it for the weekend, although he later seemed surprised when his friends reminded him that he had actually used the words “move in” during the conversation.

Joseph said his intention was never to give the structure away or establish a permanent living arrangement.

Instead, he believed the people would protect the shed while he was gone for roughly three or four days, after which he planned to return, finish the interior and begin using it himself.

One friend immediately questioned whether telling the group exactly how long they would be away was a mistake.

“You just gave him time to plan whatever he want to plan,” the friend told Joseph.

At the time, Joseph remained optimistic, saying he believed they were good people and that the trail cameras would provide another layer of protection.

That confidence did not last.

Joseph Returns To Find Curtains, Dogs And A Flag

When Joseph returned several days later, he said the scene looked far more permanent than the temporary caretaking arrangement he thought he had made.

He noticed that dogs had been moved into the shed, curtains had been installed and belongings were scattered throughout the area, while the air conditioning was running.

“They even added a American flag,” Joseph said. “Like it’s like they conquered it.”

The flag became a running joke among his friends, but his frustration underneath it was clear because he had not yet spent a night in the structure himself.

Joseph said he had intended the shed to become a place where he could stream, stay overnight and continue developing the wooded site, but now the people he had invited to watch it appeared much more comfortable there than he was.

When he approached the building and went inside, he said it smelled of cigarettes, alcohol and what he believed was pipe smoke.

One of the men told him he had just woken up, while another conversation suggested that the occupants were not in any rush to leave.

Joseph appeared increasingly uncomfortable because he felt as though he had become a visitor in a structure he and his friends had built.

“Your Airbnb Plan Is Over”

The situation became even more complicated when Joseph began asking whether the men planned to move out.

One person in the group bluntly told him, “Your Airbnb plan is over. You know that, right?”

Joseph jokingly referred to it as “checkout time,” but the discussion quickly moved into more serious territory when he called his mother and described what was happening.

She warned him that because people were now living inside the structure, it could potentially be treated as a dwelling and that simply forcing them out might create legal problems.

“Now that it’s a dwelling, you have to evict them,” she told him.

She also pointed out another major issue: Joseph did not own the land on which the shed had been built.

According to the conversation, the structure had apparently been constructed without a permit on land controlled by the city, meaning Joseph’s own legal position was far from simple.

His mother cautioned him against trying to remove the occupants through harassment and said the government entity that owned the property might ultimately have to deal with the people living there.

Joseph did not take that news well.

He repeatedly insisted that the land was “stolen land” and resisted the idea that the city had authority over what he had built, although he also became visibly more concerned when his friends suggested that police had already visited the location.

Claims That Police Had Already Been There

One of the occupants told Joseph that Houston police had previously come to the site and had been looking for the person responsible for building the shed.

According to that account, officers had left some form of notice.

Joseph became concerned that he could face consequences for putting up the structure without permission, especially after someone in the group discussed the possibility of fines or other penalties for building on government property without a permit.

He then tried to verify whether police had actually visited by checking the trail-camera footage, because some viewers watching the livestream suspected the story might have been exaggerated to scare him away.

The legal questions were never fully resolved in the video, but they placed Joseph in an awkward position.

He was upset that other people appeared to have taken control of the shed, yet he also had no clear ownership claim over the land beneath it, which meant calling police to assert traditional property rights could potentially expose his own actions to scrutiny.

That contradiction is what made the situation more complicated than a typical dispute over someone overstaying a visit.

Tensions Rise Around The Shed

As Joseph and his friends tried to continue construction, relations with some of the men around the property deteriorated.

One occupant said the area had been their old campsite before police forced them away and objected when Joseph’s group talked about taking control of another section nearby.

“We were here first,” the man said.

An argument then developed between one of Joseph’s friends, known in the video as Crusty, and a man Joseph called Olaf.

The two exchanged insults and appeared close to fighting before others tried to calm things down.

Joseph said the conflict made him feel that Olaf had initially acted friendly mainly so Joseph’s group would keep improving the structure.

He began wondering whether the occupants had simply allowed him and his friends to finish building a more comfortable shelter that they planned to keep for themselves.

“I feel like Olaf manipulated me to be on my side and be my friend to be able to like get close to the shed and give us advice just to build it right for him,” Joseph said.

Whether that was actually the plan remained unclear, but his perception of the situation had clearly changed from cooperation to distrust.

Attempts To Get Them Out Go Nowhere

Joseph and his friends began brainstorming ways to persuade the occupants to leave without creating a confrontation.

At one point, they discussed taking the men to a buffet and moving their belongings while they were gone, before recognizing that the plan might be both impractical and legally questionable.

They later tried a gentler approach by offering to get the occupants a hotel while the shed was being completed.

That proposal did not appear to gain much traction.

One man said he had no particular plan and was simply “hanging out,” adding that Joseph could either leave tools behind so he could continue the work himself or allow the group to finish construction around him.

That response only made Joseph more frustrated because he felt the occupants were behaving as though they had a say in how the shed would be completed.

Inside, Joseph showed viewers the trash, alcohol and signs of smoking that had accumulated while he was gone.

“Bro, how did we get taken over?” he asked.

Joseph Says He Feels Backstabbed

By the end of the video, Joseph still had no clear solution.

He had considered calling the non-emergency police line, asking the occupants to leave, paying for hotel rooms and trying to finish the construction while they remained inside, but none of those options seemed straightforward.

Joseph acknowledged that viewers might criticize him because he had more financial resources than the people staying in the shed and had previously been living in hotels or short-term rentals himself.

At the same time, he said he had put more than 50 hours of work into the structure and genuinely intended to use it.

The episode became less about whether someone had technically “squatted” in a conventional legal sense and more about how an informal invitation, unclear land ownership and poorly defined boundaries can turn into a difficult dispute very quickly.

Joseph said he felt especially betrayed because the people had initially acted friendly toward him while he was building.

“Just because someone’s smiling and greeting you doesn’t mean they have a knife holding behind their back,” he said.

By the time the video ended, the shed was still occupied and Joseph was asking viewers for ideas on how to resolve the situation, leaving his planned home in the woods unfinished and his temporary caretaking arrangement looking far more permanent than he ever expected.