Fran Breslauer needed the extra help. After her husband, Alan Breslauer, passed away, the widow hired Cheryl Sherrell as a live-in housekeeper.
What Fran didn't know was that Sherrell has a dark secret: She is a hoarder. It slowly happened over time, but instead of cleaning her home, Sherrell destroyed it.
She filled the house with hoards of garbage and trash. Worse than that, Sherrell refused to leave. She claimed to be a tenant of Fran's and legally squatted in the poor widow's home.
The situation became so dire, Fran was forced to move out of the San Diego home she had lived in for 60 years. Her neighbors even created a Facebook page to try and help her, called "Get Cheryl Sherrell out of that house."
Fran's daughter Jan Breslauer, a lawyer, knew she had to do something to save her mother, but the law was somehow in Sherrell's favor.
“The law in California is so bad, property law in particular, that it enables the person in possession to do this to the rightful owner of a house,” Jan told Inside Edition.
After months of an intense legal battle, Jan was finally able to get her childhood house back for her mother. The only problem is it was completely destroyed.
"It's incredibly traumatic, we all feel violated, but my mother especially," Jan said. “My mother created this house. She designed it. My mother and father cared for it like a third child."
Even though this is ultimately a win for the Breslauers, Fran is still shaken by the incident. The home will need to be completely renovated to get back to its original state.
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