How do I get a squatter out?

A friend of mine in Boulder Colorado purchased an older home to have it totally gutted with a remodel and addition. The house had been sitting vacant for sometime. When my friend went to start making measurements for the remodel he noticed that someone was squatting in his house.

He called the police to have the person removed. The police came and surround the house. After a while the police never went in to the house to get the squatter out. It was because the police had called in to their station and were told that it was a domestic issue and they couldn’t do anything, so they left.

So my friend took actions in to his own hands and boarded up the house tight once the squatter was gone. My friend thought he had solved his problem.

A while later he noticed that the squatter had moved to his detached garage. So he proceed to board that up tightly as well. This ended up solving the problem.

I did a little research on this issue and I was intrigued by this grass roots site. This site has a handbook on how to squat and the squatter’s rights. I am not sure if it is really advocating squatting or this was written in fun. However, I have a feeling that the site is really trying to help people find a house to squat in. Even if this site is fake it appears to be well written and can you give you insight on how squatters think so you have more info in your battle to have them removed.

On some of the sites that I have researched indicate you must actually follow a procedure to get them removed. Unless you find the squatter right away (really just a trespasser) then the police have the power to remove a trespasser but not a squatter.

If the squatter has been there awhile it appears you have to get a county court eviction order. Strange that you have to evict someone that never paid you a dime.

Apparently squatters actually have rights. There is some interesting reading here that says if the squatter stays long enough and does so openly, that they can actually own it. This sounds very odd to me.

You can even get a “squatter” as an unauthorized resident that moves in to the property and doesn’t move out when the authorized resident does (i.e. girlfriend moves in to a home, has a fight with boyfriend, and boyfriend moves out).