Squatter who took over dead man’s home six years ago finally allows his daughter in to collect decades-old family treasures

A squatter who has lived inside a dead man’s home for the better part of a decade has allowed his former landlord’s daughter inside to reclaim family treasures.

Donna Kent, the rightful owner of the house, inherited the property from her father who died in 2012, but is just now gaining access to her dad’s treasure-trove of once-loved relics, NewsNation reported.  

Kyle, the squatter who’s been living in Kent’s home, told the network’s Morning In America team he’s long been awaiting her visit.

He’s has been living in the New York house for six years without paying rent, but says he was happy to let in Donna to sort through her father’s old possessions – and revealed why he never tossed them away. 

A New York house that’s been occupied by a squatter for six years has finally been visited by  its rightful owner

When Donna finally reached her father’s old attic, she said: ‘So much stuff everywhere.’

Boxes of her father’s earthly possessions crowded the dusty attic that, like the rest of the house, was in a state of semi-disrepair.

Kent sorted through piled of old family pictures, baseball cards, booked with frayed edges and yellowed pages, and other knick-knacks from decades past.

‘At this point, I’m just sort of overwhelmed to be honest,’ said Kent, after nervously climbing up some tenuous stairs to the attic.

In one shocking moment, Kent picks up what appears to be a vessel filled with ashes.

‘We think we found some people’s ashes in containers, but we don’t know who they are,’ she said. 

Donna Kent was finally able to sort through her father’s attic, 14 years after his death

Kyle, last name unknown, identifies as a squatter by technicality only

For a second, she wonders whether they might be the remains of her father or other relatives. 

But shortly after that eye-brow raising moment, she reveals that the cans are more likely filled with family pets.

‘Makes me feel a little better that it’s pets and not people up here,’ she said.

The nature of Kent’s relationship with her father is not entirely clear, but she said she’d been hoping to get some closure from the dig around the attic.

‘I’ve always felt like there was something in there to give me some information, a glimpse into my dad’s life. It’s nice I was able to get into the house and see it for myself,’  she said.

Kent’s father died in 2012 – for unclear reasons, she is only now attempting to gain access to what is rightfully her property

Kent said she’d been looking for some degree of insight into her father’s life that she thought she might find in his old possessions

Kyle told the news crew that despite living a home that doesn’t belong to him, he felt a sense of duty to safekeep what wasn’t his.  

‘I figured eventually somebody would show up, but nobody showed up,’ the benevolent squatter said. 

‘I understood the situation clearly that somebody would come back,’ he said. 

‘And how would it make them feel if I told them I threw away their parents’ property?’

For his part, Kyle is maintaining that he’s a good squatter – not the kind that causes problems or operates with malicious intent.

‘Technically,’ he admitted he is a squatter, ‘but I didn’t break in, and I didn’t come in illegally,’ he noted.

‘It’s just, they stopped coming and collecting rent.’

Thankfully, they were merely the remains of a long-dead pet hidden away among other memorabilia, including decades of family pictures

In recent months, it has become clear just exactly how much of an issue the squatter epidemic in New York is.

Several high-profile cases have highlighted the legally difficult situation landlords are put in when one-time tenants, or individuals who never paid rent at all, refuse to vacate a property.

One squatter who spoke with the NewsNation team defended his behavior, saying that his occupation of various structures is preferable to the ‘crackheads,’ who could be in there.

‘There are houses that I went into and there are crackheads in there, the walls, they try to steal the pipes. What they do, you wouldn’t imagine. So, we’re actually a blessing,’ he argued.