Source: CBSAtlanta.com

A single mother with 12 kids is homeless after she says she was renting a “house of horrors” from fake landlords who have now disappeared.

CBS News reports:

The Southwest Atlanta home in the 1000 block of Sims Street has holes in the wall, broken windows and no hot water. Tacco Collins said she paid a company called the Real Estate Connection $600 a month to a stay in the home.

“I had promises that they were going to come and fix whatever needed to be fixed in the house,” Collins said.

The single mother of 12 said she waited seven months, but nothing was repaired. Collins said shortly thereafter, disaster struck.

“My biggest nightmare came of August 2011 when my light box caught on fire. Georgia Power disconnected my service because it was too dangerous,” Collins said.

Collins and her family have been using a generator for the last 10 months. She said she stopped paying rent when her supposed landlord refused to make repairs. They took Collins to court in an attempt to get her evicted and that is when she said she discovered the shocking truth.

“No one could provide the deed to the house. The people renting me the house don’t own it,” Collins said.

Now the “fake” landlords have disappeared, Collins has no place to live and she said the state is trying to take her children.

“The phony landlords should be paying the money back to my mom and they should also go to jail for it,” Octavious Collins said.

“I am trying to make some effort right now to work something out, but I am lost,” Collins said.

So, if the “Real Estate Connection” people don’t own the house then who does? Well, the mother tells CBS that the homeowner is a woman living in New York who didn’t know her home was being rented out and that woman has no plans on making any repairs to the house.

This sounds ludicrous, but it actually happens more than you think. If people see a house is abandoned, all they have to do is change the lock on the front door, and then they’ll have a key and can rent the house to whomever they want. The people living there are then called “squatters”. Sometimes the squatters know what they’re doing and sometimes, as in this woman’s case, they don’t. What’s odd is that this woman was actually taken to court by people who didn’t even own the house.

It seems there were all sorts of red flags here that either Tacco didn’t see or she willfully ignored, but I guess when you have twelve kids, you’ve got your hands full. In the video, you can see that the house is trashed, but it may be because she has so many people living in such a relatively small space.

All is not lost for this family though because CBS says Occupy Atlanta is working with them. The group said it hopes the public will help the family buy a home, which will be renovated by volunteer plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. Tacco hopes that can happen before DFAS takes her children.

What do you think about this story?

Follow Alissa Henry on Twitter @AlissaInPink

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