A 72-year-old California woman is just the latest victim in acomplicated property disputedeveloping in Nampa.
The homeowners, Brian and Renea Prindle, have been communicating with the elderly woman for months as they finalized the home sale, which became complicated in mid-March when they discovered a complete stranger was living there.
The woman who moved in claims she signed a lease to rent the home from a man the homeowners have never heard of, claiming he gave her a set of keys and collected 1550 dollars in deposits and rent. Now the homeowners are forced to take her to court to get her out.
“I’m sick to my stomach,” homeowner Renea Prindle said. “It's possible we could lose the sale of the home after everything we've been through.”
An attempt for expedited eviction based on alleged drug paraphernalia found in the home was unsuccessful Monday, as a Canyon County judge denied the homeowners motion claiming they didn’t meet the burden of proof.
The 72-year-old woman, Nancy Billings, had planned to move into the home in mid-April and is now caught in the middle of the controversy, with nowhere to move.
“She's in my house,” Billings said. “Now I won’t be able to go home.”
Her California home has already sold, and the new owners are ready to move in.
“I'm basically homeless after Friday,” Billings said. “I have to leave [my house] here and I don't have any place to go. Everybody's suffering from this except the woman who moved into it. I wonder if that's the way she lives; going from empty house to the next empty house. "
Nancy says she looked at properties for weeks before deciding the South Westwood Street home was the perfect place for her to spend her final years. She was sold by the large trees out front and nearby park.
“I fell in love with it as soon as a saw it,” Billings said. “It was the perfect house for me. Before I even got out of the house I was telling them yes.
A majority of Nancy’s things have already been shipped to Idaho, currently sitting in storage in Nampa. Now she says she may need to compromise on the home of her dreams to start looking at new properties.
“It's just a little bit devastating to me,” Nancy said. “That's where I was going to live the rest of my life right there. It's been a few months now. In my head I'm living there already, but I don't know what to do now.”
Stick with 6 On Your Side for updates on this developing story.
