Location: West PA, near Pittsburgh.
Hello,
Upon arrival to a property we rented in West PA we discovered someone already living at the property.
Clearly, someone has been scammed. We believe it was them as their listing was found via Facebook marketplace and it looked sketchy all around. Their lease was a single page and looked really unprofessional, their rental payments make no sense ("$800/mo rent + $500 utilities", way too cheap for the area & house), and the property owner listed on public records matches the information I made my security deposit to via our property management company. Their "landlord's" name is nowhere to be found.
We have no idea how to get this situation sorted. We called the police & they showed up to the property to take information from us & neighbors, but the person left before they arrived. This screams squatter who discovered their time is expiring, but all of their belongings are still at the property and they have kids, and they didn't know that we called the police. The contact information she gave us was also real, the police had us confirm that it was her via a picture.
We also attempted to contact our property management company but their business hours are Mon-Fri 9 AM - 5 PM, so we have not yet received a response. We were able to get in contact with someone on a property maintenance line and were told that someone should be able to help us tomorrow (Now today), but we have no idea what they can do for us. The property obviously wont be move in ready for a long time, especially if the person doesn't want to leave, but we need housing.
We've had to pay out of pocket for a hotel, our rental truck will cost daily late fees while we have it, and we have animals that can't stay at the hotel currently stuck in kennels in a car. We also cannot work while our living situation is up in their air.
We figure the single solution that would solve our problem as soon as possible would be the rental agency moving us into another local property. They do have availabilities, but even if we can move in as soon as today or tomorrow, we were entirely screwed here.
What can we / should we do?
Thank you.