A man neighbors identify as Vernon Glass has occupied a vacant home in Bayside, Queens since March 2024, and more than two years later a warrant to evict him still has not been issued, according to Hoodline. The house at 23-40 205th St. belonged to Richard Klibschon, who died in 2018 with no children or immediate heirs, leaving the property in legal limbo for years before anyone moved in.
Key Points
- The man believed to be Vernon Glass has refused to confirm his identity to reporters and has not responded to inquiries about the case.
- He was previously arrested in June 2018 for illegally occupying a vacant home in North Woodmere, Nassau County, where he collected rent while posing as the landlord.
- He pleaded guilty to a lesser felony and misdemeanor charge in that case and was sentenced to five years’ probation in December 2019.
- A 2022 lawsuit over a separate forced entry onto a Flushing property was dropped after the homeowners there faced foreclosure.
- New York’s Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law § 711 was amended in April 2024 to strip unauthorized occupants of the 30-day tenant protections squatters had previously used to slow removals.
A public administrator was eventually appointed to represent Klibschon’s estate after a law firm connected to the mortgage lender petitioned for one in 2025. That administrator filed documents in 2026 seeking to remove the occupants, and a court hearing was scheduled for July 2026. Neither Glass nor anyone else living at the property appeared, according to Hoodline’s reporting and ABC7 New York. Residents are still waiting for a warrant of eviction to be issued.
Rep. Tom Suozzi, who represents the district, has taken up the case on behalf of neighbors, who describe growing more apprehensive about safety on their block the longer the situation drags on. Suozzi has called the situation a fraud that is hurting quality of life for the whole neighborhood, and his office has pushed the public administrator’s process along since residents first raised the alarm in 2024.
The 2024 change to state law was designed for cases exactly like this one: a property sitting vacant, an occupant asserting rights he never legally held, and a homeowner or estate with no fast legal path to get the property back. Even with the tenant-protection loophole closed, the removal still runs through a public administrator’s probate process and a civil eviction warrant, both of which can take years when a deceased owner has no heirs to press the case. The Bayside home remains occupied, and neighbors say the answer they’ve waited two years for, an actual eviction, is still nowhere in sight.
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