Deputies Rip Out Lock for Eviction Only to Realize They Have Wrong House

A Florida woman was horrified to see officers trying to evict her family before realizing they were at the wrong address.

Jennifer Michele saw the Ring doorbell alert while she was at her mother's house on Thursday, she told Newsweek. Using Ring's video feature, the shocked resident saw two Pasco County Sheriff's Office deputies and a leasing company employee drilling through the lock on her front door in Land O' Lakes, Florida.

Michele said she lives with her husband, daughter and three dogs in the home where they pay a mortgage, not rent. She posted the security footage of her face-off with sheriff's deputies on TikTok, swiftly racking up 6.3 million views.

"Hello? What are you doing?" she asked through the Ring camera.

"We're here to finalize the eviction," one of the men answered.

"What eviction?" Michele demanded.

The deputies replied that an eviction for her house was posted a week earlier.

Frantic, Michele said, "I'm caught up on my bills. My dogs are inside there."

She later repeated, "I am caught up on my bills. Nobody has served me an eviction notice. What the hell is going on?"

After asking for her name, a deputy walked away and returned to apologize.

"We do apologize, we have the wrong house," he said. "It's the next-door neighbor's." He added that they would repair the lock.

Michele was deeply shaken at first, questioning what might have happened if she did not have a Ring system or did not check the camera.

"I could have been out of town and they could've cleared out my house, and then they could've gotten rid of all my stuff," she said in a follow-up video. "My dogs were inside, so what if they cleared out all my stuff, and then most likely, they would have taken my dogs to animal control?"

However, the resident told Newsweek that after her initial shock, she could now "laugh about it."

"They went to the correct house and immediately fixed my lock," she said. "Deputies bought me lunch, Invitation Homes sent me a gift card."

A spokesperson for the Pasco County Sheriff's Office told Newsweek, "We are investigating how this error occurred. Once the error was realized, deputies immediately worked to correct it."

Floridians are struggling with a rapidly intensifying affordable housing crisis. A February report from Realtor.com designated Miami as America's least affordable place to live, with average rents comparable to those in San Francisco and Los Angeles, but much less affordable for people in the region based on local incomes. The average rent shot up 32 percent from 2019 in Jacksonville, 34 percent in Orlando, 53 percent in Tampa and 61 percent in Miami.

Eviction defense attorneys with Legal Services of Greater Miami told WFOR-TV last month that they were maxed out on eviction cases amid unprecedented demand, saying it is almost impossible for people to access legal help with evictions during the current crisis. Landlords are equipped with lawyers about 90 percent of the time, while tenants have legal help in only 2 percent of cases, said the attorneys.