Tree-lined streets, lovingly restored brick homes and rainbow flags fluttering from front porches.
The tight-knit community of trendy Missouri enclave Tower Grove South has been left stunned to find one of their idyllic streets upended by a single intruder.
What should have been just another peaceful year in one of St Louis’s highly sought-after neighborhoods has instead devolved into crisis, residents say, after a squatter seized a vacant home and began terrorizing the people living around it.
Neighbors say Joshua Brewster has been screaming racial slurs into the night, practicing witchcraft, stripping copper piping to sell for cash and standing naked in the yard.
Brewster has become a source of fear on a block that prides itself on safety and community, with one woman telling the Daily Mail she has been sexually harassed as she walked home from the local bar.
Brewster took over the charming $164,000 single-family home earlier this year, slipping into the property after the woman who owned it died in 2024.
The property was left to out-of-state relatives and commandeered by a group of squatters in January who siphoned electricity from next door neighbors and turned the home into what locals fear is a drug den.
Brewster is now the sole occupant of the house, which he has baselessly claimed as his own despite having no legal tenancy agreement.
Joshua Brewster (pictured) has allegedly been screaming racial slurs, conjuring witchcraft and even sexually harassed a neighbor after overtaking a home in the Tower Grove South neighborhood of St Louis earlier this year, furious neighbors have claimed
Brewster moved into the vacant single-family home earlier this year. The house has broken windows, is currently boarded up and does not have electricity, gas or running water
Brewster (pictured shirtless on the back porch) has reportedly been seen standing nude in the backyard, threatened to strangle another neighbor’s cat and on Halloween stood outside the dark residence telling children he had candy
In Missouri, someone who occupies a home without permission can gain legal rights to the property through a process known as adverse possession.
But the process is tough and requires that the squatter has overtaken the home hostilely, lived in it continuously for 10 years, does not have co-occupancy with others, and acted as an owner would by paying taxes and maintain the property.
Brewster has allegedly defaced the home, beaten on the walls and even dug what looks like a grave-sized pit in the backyard, next door neighbor Chris Andoe told the Daily Mail.
‘He just rages and screams and threatens,’ Andoe said. ‘He’s called my husband the n-word during his rants. He just is a very angry, angry person.’
Andoe, an author who has lived on the street with his husband Kage Black since 2018, said the couple first encountered Brewster in May.
‘When we first saw him, he was in the backyard, presenting as perfectly normal. We introduced ourselves, and he said he was the tenant,’ Andoe told the Daily Mail.
But something felt wrong. The couple texted the late homeowner’s relatives, who quickly confirmed no lease existed.
Neighbors have told the Daily Mail that Brewster has turned the kitchen of the 1,700-square-foot house into his makeshift living quarters.
The $164,000 single-family home (pictured before the squatter overtook it) became vacant last year when the original owner, who was in her 60s, died
Next door neighbor Chris Andoe (left) claimed Brewster screamed at the couple and their dogs, beat on the house he’s occupying, and called his husband Kage (right) a racial slur
Irene Johnson, (pictured) who has lived on the street for eight years, alleged that Brewster sexually harassed her as she was leaving the local bar and that he threatened to kill her cat
With no electricity, gas or running water, they claim he piled blankets around a bed in the kitchen and hung heavy fabric over the windows to insulate the room.
Yet, they say he still maintains the grass outside, creating a bizarre contrast between a seemingly cared-for yard and a hollowed-out shell of a home.
Since then, his behavior has become increasingly deranged.
He has reportedly been seen standing nude in the backyard, threatened to strangle another neighbor’s cat and stood outside on Halloween telling children he had candy.
‘He also appears to dabble in witchcraft and seems to try to summon curses and all kinds of things,’ Andoe told the Daily Mail. ‘He placed crossed brooms outside of our house, which he said were to close a portal.’
The situation is especially jarring in Tower Grove South, which Andoe describes as being among the queerest areas in St Louis, it’s ‘so gay that even our squatter is gay,’ Andoe claimed.
Andoe claimed Brewster was once stable, engaged and active in the LGBTQ community, having once served on the board of the Ryan White Foundation, which provides HIV care and medications to uninsured people.
Neighbors claimed Brewster appears to dabble in witchcraft and tries to summon curses. He is pictured placing broomsticks in Andoe’s yard
Andoe said Brewster placed crossed brooms (pictured) outside their house in an attempt ‘to close a portal’
Pictured: The large grave that Brewster allegedly dug in the backyard of the home he overtook
Still, Irene Johnson, who has lived on the same street for eight years, said she now lives in fear after Brewster allegedly sexually harassed her as she was leaving the Grey Fox Pub.
Johnson, who goes to the bar to socialize with her neighbors and enjoy the establishment’s drag shows, said she first met Brewster at the pub in August.
She alleged that he came into the bar and started acting aggressively toward its patrons. She told the Daily Mail she got up to leave and was walking toward her house when he yelled at her.
‘He comes out yelling and saying sexual things towards me. He said verbally to me that he wanted to have relations with me,’ Johnson told the Daily Mail.
‘He’s walking towards me. I come up another neighbor’s steps and he yells out, “I know where you live, I know where you stay, I will be watching you.”‘
Johnson said she reported the alleged harassment to local police, but claimed they declined to take action because he had not physically hurt her.
The Daily Mail was not able to independently verify her claim.
‘He has made me feel uncomfortable ever since that day,’ she said. ‘I do not sleep in my bedroom. I sleep in my living room because I want to be able to hear just in case [he breaks in].’
Andoe said that people who knew Brewster (pictured on the balcony) previously claimed he used to live a seemingly normal life and once served on the board of the Ryan White Foundation, an organization that provides HIV care, medications and support to uninsured people
Brewster’s presence has also created a divide among residents, with some more tolerant locals allegedly arguing that his taking over the house was justified.
‘There are people who are angry and say, “leave the squatter alone,” and “if I was homeless, I’d take over the house,”‘ Andoe explained.
‘But I do not believe those same people would have as much grace if it was next door to them, and if they were being yelled at all the time, or threatened.’
He said their entire block is united in the effort to get Brewster out of the home and are happy with the city’s response, which included condemning the house in November and repeatedly boarding it up every time he breaks back in.
‘It feels like the people in the more expensive parts of the neighborhood are full on lecturing us on the issues that we face down here, when they have a charmed existence compared to what we’re dealing with,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘There are people who say it’s mean to call [police] on the squatter because it’s cold, and my response is, “It’s just as cold inside a home with no utilities, unless you’re burning a fire, which puts everyone at risk.”‘