A serial squatter was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Dallas, Texas, following a fraud case from 2023 in which she used her father’s name to lease a house from a young couple.

Heather Schwab pleaded guilty to felony fraud on August 31 and will begin her 20-year prison sentence, putting an end to her serial squatting habits, which have left multiple homeowners responsible for her messes, both literal and fiscal, Dallas County Court Records show.

Since 1999, Schwab has racked up a long string of charges related to fraud and theft  across courts in Colorado and Texas, according to court documents.

She has been evicted almost 30 times since 2005, and faced other charges related to fraud, forgery of checks, theft, and not paying for various services.

Schwab was able to dodge background checks by using various aliases such as Heather Ann Ruybal, Ann Ruybal, Anna Schwab, Rayes Ruybal and more, according to court filings.

Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Amber Moore said: ‘This is what she did for a living, moved into individuals’ homes knowing that she wasn’t going to pay rent and then exploited the eviction process in order to stay there for several more months,’ Denver7 reported.

In 2023, Schwab tricked homeowner Jessica Davis into executing a temporary lease for a house in Rowlett, Texas.

Jessica and Colin Davis bought the four-bedroom home in Rowlett, Texas, in December 2022, according to Fox News.

Davis soon found out her job was relocating her to Florida for six months, so she decided to rent her house out to make some of that money back in her absence.

Davis listed the house on Zillow, which is where Schwab saw it and messaged Davis, Fox reported.

Schwab claimed that her real name was Rayes Ruybal and used a friend’s Zillow account.

After a background check provided by Zillow came back clean, Davis decided to go ahead and rent to Schwab.

Soon after, Schwab made excuses for failed payments and Davis never received any money from her tenant, according to Fox.

Through her own research and digging through old news articles, Davis was able to discover that Rayes Ruybal was Ruybal’s father, and her real name was Heather Schwab.

Davis’ search for Heather Schwab revealed a slew of articles about the woman’s previous fraudulent endeavors, she shared with Fox.

Soon after in 2024, ‘Ann Schwab’ rented a three-bedroom home from Denver landlord Stephanie Williams, Denver7 reported.

Once again, the background check was clean, so Williams trusted her tenant until the payments stopped coming in by March.

Williams found out that Schwab had moved out of the house in September 2025, and left her 30-year-old ‘meth-addict, house-arrest, vehicle-stealing son’ Brandon Ruybal living there, she shared on her GoFundMe page she started to raise money needed to restore the house and deal with the methamphetamine contamination.

The landlord found meth pipes and needles strewn all over the house once it was vacated.

She wrote: ‘I had to bring in a meth testing agency, and my home is officially condemned due to meth levels. It is 8x the level of normal. It costs about $30k to have it cleaned, and insurance does not cover it.’

Schwab has been able to get away with her antics for decades by exploiting eviction laws which take at least 30 days to remove a tenant.

In both Texas and Colorado, the eviction process takes about 30 days if it goes uncontested, given all the notices and procedural hearings required to execute an eviction.

While Schwab was able to dodge her previous charges to an extent, serving short sentences throughout the decades, the long string of charges affected her most recent ruling in Dallas.

Moore said to Denver 7: ‘We wanted to make sure we highlighted the egregious nature of her conduct and that she had been evicted all these other times.’