A home on storied Mulholland Drive inLos Angeleshas been leftabandoned, and irate neighbors say that squatters and trespassers have taken over.
The home at 7711 Mulholland sits high along a ridge in the East Laurelwood neighborhood of the city and offers panoramic views of the city. It has the makings of a luxury property, but it appears no one ever moved in.
Neighbors said the lot has been taken over by trespassers who are using the half-finished home as a party location.
“The house on the top of the hill has been an issue for a while,” Paul Stern, who lives nearby, told NBC Los Angeles. “Since the point when it was constructed, it wasn't constructed properly. It created a lot of mudslides. We dealt with the mudslides.”
Neighbors said they're sick of dealing with it, and they are growing increasingly concerned about the structural safety of the property.
They've have asked that the city's mayor, Karen Bass, and Councilmember Nithya Rama, who represents the district, intervene. Bass intervened in a similar situation in August, after a fire broke out in an abandoned property in Studio City.
The mayor, who is up for reelection and running against Rama, called for legal action against the Studio City owner after the L.A. Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) called the address a "present, imminent, extreme, and immediate hazard."
Graffiti is visible on the roof of the home as seen from the road, and a city contractor says fresh trash and bottles around the property are indications of recent activity there, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Realtor.com® has reached out to Bass and Rama for comment.
A house, but not a home
The history of 7711 Mulholland is somewhat murky. It was purchased by a company called Walking Media Inc. in 2022 for $1.25 million, seemingly a steal compared to other homes in the area, many of which are listed for double that or more.
But it turns out, the house was only half-finished at the time of the sale.
When it was listed in 2022, it was accompanied by a video tour that showed an expansive hillside home replete with floor-to-ceiling windows, polished concrete floors, and exposed beams. But images of the home's kitchen and bathrooms were conspicuously absent.
That's because, at the moment, they don't exist. When it was last sold, the home had no kitchen, no sewer connection, and no certificate of occupancy. It also lacked a driveway or off-street parking.
Listings described the property as a "development opportunity" requiring "extensive work" to finish.
It's possible that some of that work might begin soon. In May, the owner filed a request for and was issued a building permit and certificate of occupancy with the LADBS.
Yet, since then, two nuisance complaints have been issued against the property and are being investigated by the city.
"Once a conspicuous property appears vacant for an extended period, vandalism, graffiti, trespassing, and exposure to the elements can make an already difficult redevelopment project even much more expensive," says Amo Realty president Daniel Amodeo. Amodeo serves real estate clients throughout the Los Angeles market.
"Buyers for these properties are potentially dealing with engineering, permitting, access, utilities, fire requirements, insurance, and also substantial construction costs before anyone can actually occupy the property," he says. "A buyer can purchase what looks like a really incredible piece of prime L.A. real estate with amazing views and then discover that completing it is a much larger undertaking than buying it."
Surprisingly, 7711 Mulholland isn't the only abandoned mansion in the city. A search of nuisance properties in L.A. uncovered a dozen properties last sold for over $1 million that are either abandoned or unfinished.
Perhaps the most famous of those properties is a $6.5 million Mulholland Drive mansion once owned by John Powers Middleton, erstwhile producer and son of Philadelphia Phillies owner John Middleton.
That property and another owned by Middleton sat fallow for more than a decade, and were overtaken by a group of squatters and grafitti writers.
In 2024, Middleton issued an apology to his neighbors, saying: “What’s happened to the two properties I own is unacceptable. No matter what caused it, I own the houses.”
As Washington, D.C.,grapples with a persistent squatting problem, one resident in the nation’s capital is speaking out about how unwelcome tenants have turned her life upside down, terrorizing her neighborhood while the city stands by and does nothing.
“I lived in several countries, including Third World countries, but it seems to me that I’m living in a Fourth World country in D.C.,” Tatyana Day Velasquez, who owns a small three-unit building in Columbia Heights, told Fox News Digital.
“I’ve never seen something like it. There’s no accountability for what goes on. Everybody just throws the ball to each other, and there’s no help. So how can somebody resolve a problem like mine if you don’t get help?”
For a tumultuous eight months, Velasquez said her property’s basement apartment has been overrun by strangers who refuse to leave and live rent-free with no consequences in sight.
As Washington, D.C., grapples with a persistent squatting problem, Tatyana Day Velasquez is speaking out about how unwelcome tenants have turned her life upside down.Fox News Digital/Kiera McDonald
Hidden behind a makeshift barricade built with trash cans and bricks, Velasquez said the apartment has transformed into a “drug haven,” with unfamiliar faces pouring in and out in the night, constant fights breaking out, and a chemical odor seeping through the building. Photos and videos provided by Velasquez show a disheveled apartment littered with needles and drug pipes, as well as Narcan, fentanyl test strips, a machete and guns.
“They don’t pay rent,” she said. “I mean they’re making money by drug dealing, obviously.”
Legal battle drags on
The dispute has since landed in D.C. Superior Court, where Velasquez is fighting to reclaim the basement apartment, arguing the courts are “overfilled with situations like mine.”
Court documents show that Velasquez discovered other people had taken over her apartment after the previous tenant told her he moved out. Despite one of the men claiming the tenant gave him a key, the lease explicitly states unauthorized occupants, subletting and drug-related criminal activity are prohibited.
A DC apartment building has reportedly been turned into a “drug haven” amid an ongoing squatter nightmare and legal battle.Fox News Digital/Kiera McDonald
Three separate tenants ultimately fled and vacated the building amid safety concerns, with one of the tenants telling Velasquez she “no longer feels safe enough to sleep here,” according to court documents.
With the men never receiving approval and not paying rent, Velasquez argued this was enough reason to have them removed from the building.
“How could that be possible?” she said. “They are not guests. They’re not invitees. This property is not a business. So, they are not implied consent to get inside, they are trespassers.”
Police records tell a more complicated story. A June 26 Metropolitan Police Department report said one of the occupants had “established residency” by living with a tenant on the lease and therefore could not simply be removed, so police treated it as a landlord-tenant dispute and made no arrests.
Under D.C. law, property owners generally cannot remove occupants themselves and instead must go through D.C. Superior Court, a process that can take months in some cases. D.C.’s Office of the Tenant Advocate says occupants must be given an opportunity to challenge a property owner’s claims in court before an eviction can be carried out.
A metal tray filled with various drug paraphernalia, including glass pipes and tubes, found inside an apartment.Fox News Digital/Kiera McDonald
“I believe this is predatory tactics, and I also believe that by letting squatters have rights, it’s a violation of the Fourth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment because you no longer have private property,” Velasquez said. “The government decides what your property is going to be used as.”
But the bills never stopped coming, according to Velasquez, including D.C. property taxes and trash violations connected to the debris left behind by squatters.
“I’m not making any income from the property and, as a matter of fact, I’m still being charged taxes from the D.C. government,” Velasquez said.
Cries for help fall on deaf ears
Velasquez has now taken it upon herself to manage the chaos, driving to the building daily to confront the alleged squatters as her cries for help fall on deaf ears.
“I have to go there every day because, you know, I haven’t received much help from the police and the neighbors are tired of it,” she said.
The confrontations with the squatter have turned physical multiple times, according to Velasquez, who said has received pushback from the police over her continued calls reporting the squatter.
“I’ve been assaulted like a couple of times and there’s nothing I can do because I’m responsible for the property and for the safety of other tenants,” Velasquez said.
One neighbor said the incident sends a troubling message about D.C.’s priorities.
A glass door with white writing that reads “So Hot you’ll want to be skinned” and “PLEASE.”Fox News Digital/Kiera McDonald
“You say you want to protect women,” Lloyd, Velasquez’s neighbor, told Fox News Digital. “You’re so against domestic violence, you’re against this and that, but then you turn around and do something like this.”
The disturbances have even spread beyond the property, Lloyd said, with neighbors passing by also being antagonized.
“The way I see it, it’s a domino effect, and it’s an entitled domino effect, and it is an audacity thing,” Lloyd said.
A flawed system
The ongoing legal battle is shining a spotlight on D.C.’s controversial approach to alleged squatters, with property owners left with few options while eviction proceedings play out in court and bills continue to pile up.
Lloyd said the effects of squatting can ripple through entire neighborhoods.
“It’s like one negative thing permeates another negative thing, so you become a fungus in the neighborhood with nuclear waste attached to you,” Lloyd said.
A D.C. police spokesperson told Fox News Digital MPD’s authority is limited once someone has established residency at a property, adding that officers can respond to calls, investigate alleged crimes and make arrests when they find probable cause, but they cannot simply remove an established resident because a property owner considers the person unauthorized.
Despite a recent eviction attempt and arrest, squatters returned; Velasquez’s protective order was dismissed.Fox News Digital/Kiera McDonald
Evictions and questions about possession have to go through D.C. Superior Court, with the U.S. Marshals responsible for carrying out court-ordered evictions. The spokesperson said the underlying problem is largely a matter of D.C. law and that any legislative change would fall to the D.C. Council.
“Squatting is not primarily a housing policy problem; it is a property-rights enforcement problem,” John Gibbs, Director of the Institute for Economic Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital. “The core failure is that lawful owners often face greater burdens recovering their property than unauthorized occupants face taking possession of it. The solution is restoring the presumption that ownership matters. Expedited removal procedures, stronger anti-fraud penalties, faster courts, and clearer authority for law enforcement could significantly reduce squatting while preserving protections for legitimate tenants.”
Gibbs pointed to a combination of factors he believes has fueled the growth of squatting in recent years, including the lingering effects of COVID-era eviction moratoriums, which expanded government involvement in landlord-tenant disputes and made removing occupants more difficult and uncertain. He argued those moratoriums helped foster an environment in which occupancy rights were increasingly weighed against property owners’ rights.
Additionally, Gibbs pointed to a growing reluctance among authorities to treat unauthorized occupancy as a property-rights issue, along with changes in policing and prosecution that he said have weakened deterrence. At the same time, he said social media has made it easier for would-be squatters to learn how to exploit eviction procedures, pointing to reports of fake leases, online tutorials and organized schemes that have made the tactics easier to replicate.
A machete, a red object, and clothing on a tiled floor.Fox News Digital/Kiera McDonald
Fox News Digital reached out to multiple members and committees of the D.C. City Council for comment.
The mayor’s office declined to comment.
Last week, the U.S. Marshalls served an eviction at the property, and one of the squatters was also arrested for violating the protective order on the location, but the problem has not been resolved as he and his acquaintances have returned to the property multiple times, Velasquez says. Additionally, Velasquez says her protective order has been dismissed due to clerical errors in the courts.
For Velasquez, the dispute is one of many “horror stories” facing DC property owners that have been reported in local media over the past few years with no resolution in sight.
“These small landlords cannot survive in D.C.,” Velasquez said. “I don’t know what the end game is from the city, but they don’t care about the small guys, the small landlords.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the alleged squatter for comment but did not receive a response.
City Hall danced on the grave of a dead Brooklyn landlord who left behind three derelict buildings with over 1,000 property violations – as Mayor Zohran Mamdani took credit for the effort as part of a crackdown of bad landlords ofrent-stabilized buildings.
Mamdani took the victory lap in a press release Thursday, announcing the deceased Rubin Dukler’s neglected Crown Heights buildings were sold to a Mark Schwartz, who is planning to remedy the 88 units in close coordination with the Housing and Preservation Department.
“The tenants of the Dukler Tenant Union have suffered from neglect and disinvestment for years,” Mamdani said in a statement. “Today, a new chapter begins for these buildings.”
The Mamdani administration helped facilitate the sale of the building by utilizing the HPD’s Alternative Enforcement Program – which targets dilapidated buildings with severe violations. As a result the HPD will have to make emergency repairs at the properties. 0
One osberver said the sale is a “genuine success story” for the buildings’ tenants – who have been organizing against Dukler for years – but warned the move signals Mamdani’s commitment to cracking down on private owners of rent-stabilized buildings.
“This is a clear signal from the Mamdani administration that chronic neglect is going to be met with escalating enforcement,” said real estate attorney and partner at BlankRome Massimo D’Angelo.
“And that the city is going to actively work to transfer ownership of these buildings and similar type buildings, you know, from non-compliant owners, and transfer them ultimately to set up tenant ownership,” he said.
Tenants of the buildings had been organizing for years to get emergency repairs fixed.Google Maps
Dukler – who was routinely featured on the Public Advocate’s “worst landlord’s list” – died in 2022, and had a history of open violations on his portfolio dating back to before 2002.
He sold a 50% stake in his portfolio to Iris Holdings Group for $6.2 million in 2017 – but the sale resulted in a years long legal battle over management and upkeep duties between the two entities, according to previous reporting by Curbed.
Following his death, tenants were left in limbo for nearly four years without a clear building management structure, and formed the Dukler Tenant Union in 2025 to transfer ownership away from Dukler’s estate.
The buildings landlord passed away in 2022, and the building was sold to a Mark Schwartz on Wednesday.Google Maps Now, HPD claims it will continue to work with Schwartz and the building tenants to ensure the new ownership will “adequately invest” in repairs and maintenance.
“We will work alongside tenants and the new owner to put these 88 homes on a path toward stability and make clear that every New Yorker deserves a safe, well-maintained and stable place to call home,” Mamdani said.
