Airbnb owner forced to move kids out after 'squatter' demands $100,000 to leave

16 October 2023 , 21:22

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Sascha Jovanovic had to move his children out of the mansion he owns after a squatter has refused to leave for two years (Image: Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

A man embroiled in a legal battle with the woman now deemed "America's worst Airbnb renter" has since had to move his children out of the mansion where she has been "serial squatting" for nearly two years.

Sascha Jovanovic said he didn't want "young kids to be potentially exposed to any kind of adversity" like that that's been occurring between him and Elizabeth Hirschhorn, the 55-year-old who has been occupying his property for the past 18 months rent-free in Brentwood, Los Angeles. His children are teenagers.

He told DailyMail.com: "I don't know what this [high profile] is going to do to a person who is kind of locked up in my house and not wanting to come out, who has been extremely secretive for the last two years. What is her move going to be? I moved the kids out already because I don't want the young kids to be potentially exposed to any kind of adversity like this."

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Elizabeth Hirschhorn has been described as a "tenant from hell" after refusing to leave an Airbnb for two years (Facebook)

Recently released footage shows Hirschhorn filming Jovanovic, 61, inside the home as he attempts to speak with her just days after her original six-month lease for the property expired. For the past nearly two years, she has been demanding $100,000 from him to leave the property, but he has been demanding $60,000 in unpaid rent from her for the time she has spent for free in his $3.5 million mansion.

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She claims that Jovanovic failed to acquire the proper permit for the shower inside the guesthouse where she has been holing up. She's used that excuse to defy three eviction notices and also denied several offers from the owner to put her up in a hotel as she searches for another place to live.

The property on which Hirschhorn lives is located in LA (Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Jovanovic and Sebastian Rucci, his lawyer, recently filed yet another motion asking for a judge to re-examine the case after new information about previous cases in which Hirschhorn had found herself entangled came to light, including a similar situation in which she sublet the apartment of a cinematographer in Venice Beach.

In that instance, she sued Jim Denault's former landlord over what she called "chemical exposure" from a gas stove in the apartment, Denault told DailyMail.com. Denault is credited with work on Yellowstone and has multiple Emmy nominations. The landlord, Peter Trias, who later died, ended up settling the case by paying Hirschhorn a lump sum of cash.

There have been several other cases over the years, some of which proved unsuccessful for Hirschhorn, and Jovanovic and Rucci's motion was filed on the pretense that the other cases show that Hirschhorn is a "serial squatter."

Hirschhorn is demanding $100,000 to leave, while Jovanovic is requiring $60,000 from her in back rent (Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Amanda Seward, Hirschhorn's attorney, clapped back on Thursday, however, writing that the new motion "goes against everything the American justice system stands for," according to a statement obtained by DailyMail.com. She called it "abhorrent and inadmissible hearsay designed to prejudice the court against the defendant."

"No one argues that [Jovanovic] cannot evict the defendant. It is just that he has not done it in the right way," she further stated when she asked the judge to deny the motion. "[Jovanovic] rented an illegal unit and refused to follow the rules for Los Angeles."

The case is expected to come to another head on Monday, when everyone is due back in court. Jovanovic, however, said he just wants to be able to live in his home again.

Jeremiah Hassel