Mom Left w/ No Place To Live While State Seeks To Take Kids After She Falls Victim To Rent Scam Involving Vacant Home Belonging To Out-Of-State Owner

In Atlanta, Georgia, WGCL-TV Channel 46 reports:

• Tocco Collins calls the place where she used to live a house of horrors. "Look at this sinking floor right here. It's a dangerous situation," Collins said.
  
  The Southwest Atlanta home in the 1000 block of Sims Street has holes in the wall, broken windows and no hot water. Collins said she paid a company called the Real Estate Connection $600 a month to a stay in the home. "I had promises that they were going to come and fix whatever needed to be fixed in the house," Collins said.
  
  The single mother of 12 said she waited seven months, but nothing was repaired. Collins said shortly thereafter, disaster struck. "My biggest nightmare came of August 2011 when my light box caught on fire. Georgia Power disconnected my service because it was too dangerous," Collins said.
  
  Collins and her family have been using a generator for the last 10 months. She said she stopped paying rent when her supposed landlord refused to make repairs. They took Collins to court in an attempt to get her evicted and that is when she said she discovered the shocking truth.
  
  "No one could provide the deed to the house. The people renting me the house don't own it," Collins said. Now the "fake" landlords have disappeared, Collins has no place to live and she said the state is trying to take her children.
  
  "The phony landlords should be paying the money back to my mom and they should also go to jail for it," Octavious Collins said. "I am trying to make some effort right now to work something out, but I am lost," Collins said.
  
  Collins said the home is actually owned by a woman in New York state who claims she had no idea the home was being rented out. Occupy Atlanta is working with Collins and her family. The group said it hopes the public will help the family buy a home, which will be renovated by volunteer plumbers electricians and carpenters.

Source: Family of 11 homeless after falling victim to fake landlord.