Two landlords who wanted to lease their home one final time before moving back into it were targeted by a pair of serial squatters it took nearly a year to evict after they refused to pay rent for months.
Kim and Skip Moriarty moved into their first home in the Fair Oaks suburb nestled right outside Sacramento. They told ABC 10 that they moved out once their family started growing but ultimately decided to lease it as a means of making income.
After renting the home out for 34 years to several tenants, the Moriartys wanted to move back in but decided to lease it one last time before doing so.
That’s when they met Mario and Ann Figueroa, the couple who would be their last tenants.
“They seemed like wonderful people,” Skip Moriarty told ABC 10.
The Moriartys requested credit reports and a 401(k) statement, which showed the couple possessed sizable funds in their pension account before signing a new lease.
Once all the checks and paperwork were out of the way, the Figueroas moved in in August 2022.
Then, for the next three months, they didn’t pay rent. The couple told the Moriartys that recent deaths and illnesses in the family were taking up much of their attention during that time.
“‘We deeply apologize. Mario’s grandfather passed last week and we had to contribute,’” Kim Moriarty read from a text she received from Ann Figueroa in September.
In November, the Figueroas told the Moriartys that Mario’s mother died. Then, in December, his father became ill. And still, no rent payments. Then, they stopped paying rent altogether.
Other Victims of the Serial Squatters Emerge
The same thing happened to Tari Gunn, another landlord who rented her home to the Figueroas that’s just two miles from the Moriartys’ home. Gunn said the Figueroas used the same pretext of family deaths to excuse them from paying rent.
“I just incurred so many financial issues … it was really hard,” Gunn said.
Gunn wasn’t…
Read the full article here
