Americans still believe in property rights. ‘Squatters’ proves it.
A new A&E series, Squatters, is bringing a frustrating reality into living rooms across America: homeowners who find themselves locked out of their own property while managing a confusing and often slow legal process to regain possession from trespassers.
The show’s popularity says something interesting about our culture. Americans don’t spend much time talking about “property rights,” but they know instinctively when those rights seem to have been violated. We rally around free speech and religious liberty as fundamental constitutional freedoms. Property rights, by contrast, are often treated as technical legal disputes—until someone imagines losing control of their own home. Suddenly, the issue becomes very personal.
Just look at the reaction online after an episode airs. Viewers aren’t debating constitutional clauses or legal doctrines—they’re expressing a basic sense of fairness. Many ask some version of, “If I walked into a house I pay for and strangers were inside, why shouldn’t I be able to remove them?” Others compare the situation to someone stealing a car and writing their own bill of sale. They aren’t speaking the language of constitutional law, but they are expressing a deeply rooted belief that owners should be able to control their own property.
The wording is different, but the instinct is the same: Americans care deeply about property rights—even if they don’t always call them that.
That’s why Squatters resonates. At its core is a simple question: If you own your property, shouldn’t you be able to control who occupies it?
Property rights begin with a basic principle: Owners should have the right to possess, use, and exclude others from their property. When the law makes it difficult to remove unauthorized occupants, the burden falls on law-abiding property owners who may continue paying mortgages, taxes, insurance, and maintenance while being denied the use of their own homes.
The situations featured on Squatters may seem extreme, but disputes over possession and property rights aren’t confined to television.
Pacific Legal Foundation represents small housing providers in California challenging pandemic-era eviction moratoriums that remained in place years after the COVID-19 emergency had passed. The case isn’t about large corporate landlords. It involves ordinary property owners who say they were prevented from reclaiming possession of their own property despite years of unpaid rent, alleged property destruction, harassment of other residents, and even violence.
One property owner says he shut down an independent living facility for adults with mental disabilities after a tenant allegedly harassed residents and struck one with a crowbar. Another stopped renting a second unit altogether because he feared becoming trapped with another non-paying tenant. A third inherited a rental property intended to secure his family’s financial future, but he has been unable to regain possession or sell it.
While these facts differ from the situations portrayed on Squatters, they raise the same underlying question: How should the law balance legitimate tenant protections with a property owner’s constitutional right to reclaim possession of private property?
Pacific Legal Foundation has spent decades defending property rights in court, whether fighting home equity theft, challenging unconstitutional land-use restrictions, pushing back against eminent domain abuse, or protecting owners from unlawful government action. But litigation alone isn’t enough. Good public policy matters, too.
That’s why PLF has developed model legislation to help states distinguish between legitimate landlord-tenant disputes and unlawful squatting while protecting due process for everyone involved. The goal is simple: provide a clear process for removing unauthorized occupants while protecting the rights of lawful tenants and property owners alike.
PLF has also published Locking Squatters Out, a comprehensive report examining the legal context surrounding squatting, how states have responded, and reforms that can better protect property owners while preserving legitimate tenant protections. The report offers lawmakers practical guidance for fixing a problem that has increasingly shined a spotlight on the issue.
Squatters reminds us that Americans still care deeply about property rights—even if we don’t always use that phrase. The show’s popularity presents an opportunity to reconnect those instincts with the constitutional principles that protect everyone’s freedom. And as lawmakers continue debating how best to address unauthorized occupancy, the conversation shouldn’t end when the credits end. It should bring about policies that protect both due process and one of our oldest constitutional guarantees: the right to enjoy, possess, and protect our personal property.
