After the Texas Central Railway bought up several dozen vacant houses in the town of White Oak Falls, local residents say vagrants and bums have taken over the properties and they are scared for their safety, their children, and their property values.
TCR bought a total of 41 houses in an area of town that the company needs to use to lay track for a high-speed train system. They intend to tear down the houses to put in the infrastructure for a train that would travel between Dallas and Houston.
But locals say that is not what has happened. Instead, squatters have moved in.
One homeowner, Maria Arzola, said she was scared for herself and for her grandchildren. “It’s not fair for me,” she said, to pay property taxes and neighborhood association fees while drug users and miscreants destroy her neighborhood and get multi-bedroom housing for free simply by taking it for their own.
The area is in obviously rough shape, with the TCR-owned properties absolutely wrecked. Doors are splintered into shards, graffiti covers the walls, and windows are broken out. The neighborhood has gone downhill so fast that many homeowners are desperately trying to sell and get away as fast as they can before their own homes become impossible to unload.
One of the most gruesome examples is a house filled with squatters who spray-painted the words “sex house” on the front door.
Nestor Cortez was approached by the railroad a few years ago but did not want to sell his house. Now he has changed his mind, but says he cannot afford to move. When he then tried to sell the house to TCR, they didn’t want to buy it.
While squatting is illegal in the state, it does not appear that any authorities are doing anything about the situation in White Oak Falls. The state is having the same trouble with squatters that other states face as they realize their laws are inadequate, and often favor what are actually just plain old house thieves, not “tenants” who should be entitled to legal rights.
Due to the complications in landlord/tenant laws, squatters are often able to stay right where they are for months or years at a time while legitimate property owners try to prove to courts that the squatters are thieves, not “tenants.”
