SOUTH FULTON, Ga. — Linda Griffen has been gardening for over 75 years. It's a place that she finds calm in the midst of chaos.
Unfortunately, she's been dealing with a lot of chaos lately.
Just several feet from her garden sits Griffen's home in southwest Atlanta. On one side, she lives, and on the other, is her former tenant.
Griffen said the tenant, whose lease recently expired, has not paid her rent since March and is now squatting inside of her home.
"To live on the same property that the tenant is on even makes it a little more cautious because you just don’t know from day to day what’s going to happen," Griffen stated. "This is a scary situation."
Griffen filed an eviction lawsuit in March with the Fulton County Magistrate Court. The homeowner said the woman living in her home challenged the eviction, which can buy tenants months to continue living.
According to a spokesperson with the Fulton County Marshal's Office, which serves court evictions, they received the court order on May 29 but can only complete it in the order in which it was received.
“I talked to a Marshal this morning, and they told me they couldn’t get to me until September or October. I told them my story. I asked please…and he said there’s nothing they can do because they have a backlog," Griffen said.
Back in March, officials in Gwinnett, Cobb and Fulton counties shared that the wait for an eviction to be served ranged from four to six months due to the number of evictions accrued following the COVID-19 pandemic and staffing challenges.
11Alive did try to reach out to the tenant living inside of the home, but no one was there at the time.
As Griffen continues to fight to get her home back, she said she's looking to her garden to find peace among her plants.
"Mother nature . . . she’s a heck of a girl. She does a lot," she said.