An Oregon family armed with their very own fire extinguishers needed to repeatedly save their home from fires after homeless squatters set a nextdoor house ablaze twice in someday.
Jacob Adams said he jumped into motion as flames from each infernos threatened to leap over to their Portland property in the newest in a string of terrifying experiences since squatters took over the neighboring structure five years earlier.
“There are fires which were happening on and off. Major ones. This recent one actually got here and set our property on fire,” Adams told Fox 12.
“Inside 12 hours of that fireplace, one other fire popped up. My wife was screaming, and propane tanks were igniting off from the hearth.”
Surveillance footage of the alarming incident shows Adams using fire extinguishers to fend off the inferno from jumping over the fence between the 2 properties as his wife, Beth, cries within the background.
He told the outlet he’s since bought several more extinguishers within the likely event he needs to avoid wasting his home again.
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Portland has been coping with a long-lasting homeless problem. There are over 6,600 homeless people in Portland across greater than 700 encampments in the town.
Although the town’s Mayor Ted Wheeler announced in October plans to ban the camps, the tent cities have largely remained undisturbed by city officials, including police.
The lax enforcement has allowed squatters to take over homes just like the one round the corner to Adams, despite being served multiple eviction notices.
Adams said over the past five years he’s reported multiple thefts — including one wrongdoer who he caught stalking off their property with their firewood — drug usage and physical fights contained in the rapidly deteriorating home, but to no avail.
“I don’t know the way persistently I’ve talked to police, because persons are screaming, or someone is overdosing,” he said.
“It’s just countless, countless first responders’ calls. All of us should love our neighbor regardless of who they’re. But at the purpose after they start setting your home on fire it becomes a bit of harder.”
One other neighbor, 83-year-old veteran Armand Martens, told Fox that the squatters have destroyed the neighborhood to the purpose where he fears for his safety.
“I felt safer after I was walking around in downtown Saigon after I was in Vietnam than I do here in Portland,” he said.
Martens said he’s needed to take matters into his own hands as his illegal neighbors have repeatedly connected a hose to his water.
He’s also made repeated complaints to city leaders, but fears his concerns are falling on deaf ears.
“It looks like all the stuff they’re doing is enabling the homeless people,” Martens said.
