A normally quiet suburban community in Bayside was filled with police officers, attorneys and movers as the city formally evicted two alleged squatters from a deceased man’s home and handed the keys over to Queens’ public administrator on Tuesday.

Vernon Glass and Lusascha Taylor were evicted this week from a Bayside house that the Queens District Attorney’s office claimed they had been illegally occupying for years. The pair had lived inside the home for about two and a half years after breaking into the property, according to the DA, taking advantage of the vacant house after its owner died. The previous owner of the million-dollar house, Richard Klibschon, died of a heart attack in 2018 without a spouse, children or immediate heirs.

The hospital or funeral home that handled Klibschon’s death was required by law to notify the Queens public administrator – the official in the borough’s Surrogate’s Court responsible for managing such estates – but neither did so.

The situation has become increasingly common in Queens, where the public administrator’s office is being notified less frequently of deaths, leading to legal situations that are difficult to resolve.

“If a burial takes place without notice, [the case] just languishes after that,” Gerard Sweeney, the counsel to the Queens public administrator, told the Eagle. “No one can get control of it without notifying us.”

Klibschon’s home sat empty for more than four years as the bank, which also did not notify the public administrator, made slow progress filing the paperwork needed to foreclose on the property. The COVID-19 pandemic and the eviction moratorium imposed during that time further complicated the foreclosure process.

It was amid these delays in 2024 that Glass and Taylor allegedly broke into the building and made it their home.

Neighbors said that the squatters kept to themselves and rarely interacted with anyone in the area. But nearby residents became suspicious over time that the pair was living in the house illegally.

In April, 41 neighbors sent a petition to U.S. Representative Tom Souzzi, who is up for reelection, requesting his help with the alleged squatters.

It was Suozzi’s office that notified the Queens public administrator of Klibschon’s death and his lack of next of kin, nearly eight years after he had passed.

“It’s not really a federal issue, but I realized it was a big issue for the people that lived in the neighborhood,” Suozzi told the Eagle. “I just figured you should call the public administrator, that’s who should be involved here because there’s nobody involved in the house.”

“It’s a big bureaucratic process,” Suozzi said. “This has been a good example of people doing the right thing.”

Not long after Suozzi’s involvement, the case caught the eye of the Queens DA’s office, which launched its own investigation into Glass and Taylor. The two were arrested in September and charged with burglary and trespassing.

Glass and Taylor both face up to 15 years in prison if they are convicted of the top count. Both pleaded not guilty and were ordered not to return to the property.

“You simply cannot move into a home without permission and claim you have a right to stay – even if the property is vacant and the owner is deceased,” Katz said in a statement in September. “The defendants have been removed from the property, and the home has been secured to prevent their return. They will now face justice in our court system.”