Family shocked to find stranger living in their Salt Lake apartment after vacation

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Imagine coming back from a week’s vacation to find that a complete stranger had taken over your house and stolen most of your belongings.

A Utah family says that’s what happened to them after they found a squatter living in their apartment for seven days, and the neighbors didn’t seem to notice.

Genesis Gonzalez and her 1-year-old son had been visiting family for a week in Spanish Fork, but when she returned Thursday night, she saw something strange.

“I saw the hole,” she said, referring to the doorknob cut into her front door.

She could also smell cigarette smoke and hear that someone was watching her television.

When she opened the door, she said she saw a strange woman on her couch. The woman allegedly stood up and began yelling at Gonzalez to leave, claiming the apartment was now hers.

“I had a diaper in my hand and she took the diaper, threw it and said, ‘Go away, this is my house. Take your child with you,'” Gonzalez said.

She got out of there and called the police.

Gonzalez said: “I was crying because, obviously, I was very scared. I was like, ‘This is my apartment. What’s going on?'”

She also texted her husband, Jaime, who was returning from Mexico.

“She just texted me, ‘Someone broke into our house. Some random lady is in our house. I just called the police. I was shocked. I thought she was joking,” he said.

However, once he returned home, he said he saw that his apartment had been ransacked.

“As soon as I walked in, I saw everything was missing from its place,” he said. “The kitchen cabinets had been ripped out and all the food was gone. When I went into my closet it was completely empty. I didn’t see any clothes at all.

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Gonzalez said the squatter even took baby clothes, their glasses and, worst of all, Genesis’ wedding ring, which she wasn’t wearing because she was seven months pregnant.

She said, “I feel so bad because this is important to me.”

Court documents say the suspect had been staying in one of those apartments for a week and neighbors didn’t appear to notice him.

Salt Lake City police declined to give an interview about the case, but the probable cause statement said the suspect, Leslie Jean Harding, had placed items near doors inside the complex, and if no one removed these items, she knew no one was home.

Harding reportedly stayed at the apartment while police arrived, then admitted she had been staying there for a week.

Harding was arrested for criminal trespass.

The family has still not recovered their belongings.

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