Handyman Flash Shelton learned squatters had taken over his mother's empty house, which was on the market. When authorities wouldn't help, he said, he took matters into his own hands.
A California handyman has become internet-famous after he confronted squatters who took over his mother's house and drove them out.
Flash Shelton said his parents' home was put on the market after his father died and his mother was unable to live there alone.
And that's when the trouble started, he said.
Neighbors informed him that people had begun unloading furniture and their possessions into the empty house, Shelton said. When he contacted law enforcement, he said he was told there was nothing they could do.
"I just felt like, if they can take a house, I can take a house," Shelton told Inside Edition.
Shelton, founder of the United Handyman Association, which conducts background checks and vets handymen, said he decided he would have to get rid of the invaders on his own.
He made the long drive from Los Angeles to Northern California. "I got in there around 4 a.m. I saw cars in the driveway and decided I would wait it out," he said.
He watched as the inhabitants left his mother's house, one by one. Then he used his keys to enter the home.
"It was so overwhelming," he said. "My stomach dropped ... I have memories of my parents living there."
Shelton said he suspected the occupants were related to a woman who previously had sought to rent the home. She was a corrections officer with the state, he said, but he turned her down.
Once inside the house, Shelton said he saw what appeared to be a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation uniform.
"It was mind-blowing," he said. And then a woman approached him, shook his hand, and apologized for living in the home, he said.
“I’m really sorry about all this,” the woman can be heard saying on video that Shelton says he recorded.
He gave her until midnight to get out, he said.
The squatters complied, he said, and moved out their belongings.
The video he shot of the confrontation and posted on YouTube has gone viral, receiving millions of views.
Shelton said the house was later sold.
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