Jacksonville homeowner tries to shame squatters with signs alerting police to drugs, prostitution

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A local homeowner said he put up signs advertising drugs and prostitutes to shame what he calls squatters into leaving his Oceanway property.

Neighbors tell Action News Jax those signs are an eyesore and are making the area unsafe.

“It's going to be a traffic problem pretty soon,” neighbor Scott Dickey said. “People have swerved to miss them.”

On Wednesday, the homeowner, Stephen Beck, said he's been dealing with the alleged squatters for months. Beck said they moved into his mobile home without his permission.

Beck said the Bible was his inspiration for putting up the signs.

“Shame the crackheads, shame the prostitutes and shame the police for not doing their jobs,” Beck said.

Action News Jax went down to the home for the so-called squatters side of the story.

“The landlord is just being an [expletive] pretty much,” a woman said.

To clear this up, we brought in Action News Jax Law and Safety Expert Dale Carson.

“[The homeowner’s] only option is to open a court case and sue them, essentially, to recover the property. And that’s done through an eviction,” Carson said.

But in the meantime, neighbors like Dickey are really the ones who suffer.

“They’ve kept me up all night pretty much,” Dickey said.

Cox Media Group