You won’t believe what this NYC squatter is getting to vacate home after living there rent-free for over 5 years: ‘Cheaper than going the legal route’
A Staten Island squatter freeloading in a dead man’s home for six years will allegedly vacate the property — if the late owner’s family pays his moving costs.
“It’s a really weird story,’’ Donna Kent, whose father owned the Metcalfe Street home before dying in 2012, admitted to The Post on Friday.
“He wants us to pay his moving expenses when he leaves, which is kinda crazy. But I guess it’s cheaper than going the legal route,” said Kent, a mom with two adult daughters.
Kent, 55, said the squatter named Kyle has apparently been living rent-free in the single-family 2.5-story home since around 2018 after a bizarre series of events.
The reputed twists and turns include her father’s wife passing away in 2013, then the stepmom’s daughter renting out the home before dying a few years later.
The tenant then left for Pennsylvania — paving the way for Kyle, his cousin, to move in and live there for free ever since, according to Kent and her Realtor, Sal Taormina, citing the squatter.
Kyle’s position is, “I didn’t break in.
“I figured eventually somebody would show up [to collect rent], but nobody showed up,” he told NewsNation, which first broke the story.
Kent said she met Kyle for the first time last weekend when she went to the home with her mother and Taormina to try to get some personal items before they put the property on the market.
They zeroed in on the attic, which Kyle said he never entered because “he felt it was very intrusive, which is kinda strange, but …’’ Kent said.
“[Kyle] was very nice, a very nice person,’’ said Kent — who Taormina recalled hugged the squatter when she met him.
Taormina — who called Kyle “one of the nicest squatters I’ve met’’ — said the “moving costs’’ amount to a month’s rent, month’s security deposit and broker’s fee if the next place he moves requires one.
“Less than $10,000,’’ the Realtor estimated.
“Some people might be upset he’s getting anything. But the truth of the matter is, he’s in the house,’’ Taormina said.
Kent said she only became aware of the whole situation a few years ago, when the bank holding the deeply-in-arrears mortgage contacted her.
She said she has been working with Taormina — a local expert on such squatter situations — on devising the best solution for everyone on behalf of her two sisters and a half-brother, who are heirs to their dad Richard Sentmier’s estate.
Kent, who has worked in marketing, was born in Astoria, Queens, and now lives in Tucson, Ariz. She said she never lived in the home and first went to see it about five years ago when the lender reached out.
“I look in the window and see a person, a stranger, sitting in there with the Internet router blinking — I was scared,’’ said Kent, adding that she then left the property.
About $530,000 is currently owed in back mortgage payments and taxes on the property, which was just appraised for a lowly $210,000 given its current state of disrepair, Taormina said.
Kent said the condition of the home is “just awful,” with gaping holes in sections of ceiling and Kyle using a twin mattress as a makeshift “door’’ between two areas.
Taormina said they are hoping the bank will cut them a break to bring down the debt so everyone deserving can get a small slice of the pie.
“I tried not to hold a grudge against him,’’ Kent said of Kyle, who apparently lives in the home with his girlfriend.
“What I learned from Sal is, if everybody can just sort of play nice, you can get things solved much more quickly,’’ she said.
She said Kyle told her as she left, “ ‘I believe in karma, I believe in doing the right thing.’
“So maybe he has a lot of guilt,’’ Kent said.
