The bitter row over Yahoo Serious squatting in a huge beachside shack in one of Australia’s ritziest suburbs has finally ended after months of deadlock.
Serious has refused to leave the Palm Beach property on Sydney’s northern beaches after its elderly dementia-suffering owner went into a nursing home last year.
But Daily Mail can now reveal the fallen Hollywood icon has finally left – and is now effectively homelessness, with all his worldly goods stashed in his ageing BMW car.
‘He’s out!’ his jubilant landlord Margie Charlton, who holds power of attorney for owner Charles Phillip Porter, told Daily Mail on Wednesday.
‘We kicked him out.’
Serious was under a court order to vacate the Barrenjoey Road property on August 4, but did not leave until August 5 after Margie confronted him.
Even then, Serious didn’t go quietly.
‘He called the police and said I was being violent,’ Margie said. ‘The police came and they said, “No mate, you’re out. You gotta leave.”‘
Yahoo is believed to only have his dilapidated BMW to shelter himself and dog Jingle
Margie Charlton is thrilled to have the ordeal behind her, telling Daily Mail, ‘He’s out!’
After police intervened, Serious fled the scene with his Jack Russell dog, Jingle.
On Wednesday, his rundown car remained in the driveway, and according to Ms Charlton, it is ‘filled with his s***, but the car is f***ed. It’s not going to go anywhere’.
The Aussie actor – who was briefly a huge Hollywood comedy star in the 1980s and early 1990s – allegedly left a trail of destruction in his wake.
‘He has left the house in a filthy state,’ Ms Charlton said. ‘There is rotting food, it’s disgusting.’
In the 24 hours since Serious left, Ms Charlton had to call in an army of friends for the clean up operation and removed ‘six truckloads of stuff’, she said.
But she’s relieved the ordeal is finally over after endless legal battles and tense confrontations with the star over the home.
In July, she told Daily Mail that she needed to sell the property to help pay for Mr Porter’s nursing home fees, which were $70,000 and rising.
‘Now, we can clean it up and get it up for sale,’ she said on Wednesday. ‘It should have gone on the market in June last year.’
Yahoo allegedly called the police during a dramatic confrontation with Margie on Tuesday
Yahoo used to live in the basement of this Palm Beach home, but moved into the upstairs
Palm Beach local Margie Charlton now faces a lengthy clean-up to get the home on the market
Earlier this week, Ms Charlton confronted Serious, 72, at the home in front of TV cameras with a journalist from A Current Affair, but he still refused to leave.
‘You’ve been living in this property while Margie’s been trying to sell it to pay for Phillip’s aged care,’ reporter Pippa Bradshaw told the Young Einstein star.
‘He’s got dementia – he can sell the property,’ Serious replied.
When told that Ms Charlton had been unable to sell the property while Serious was occupying it, he insisted he was not squatting but was ‘sick.’
‘I’m not squatting – [I’m] surviving,’ Serious said.
‘Look at the weather out there – it’s really, really dangerous.’
Removalists then arrived to begin stripping the property of belongings but Serious still refused to budge.
‘Yahoo is still refusing to go, even though we are taking all the old furniture out so the house can be sold,’ Ms Charlton said.
Yahoo shot to fame in the 1980s thanks to his starring role in Young Einstein
She added that the situation would soon be escalated if Serious continued to flout the court order.
‘We have booked a sheriff. As soon as the sheriff comes… if he refuses to go… the police will be called and he’ll be physically removed from the property,’ Charlton said.
Speaking to Daily Mail in July, Serious denied that he was squatting at the property, despite a tribunal hearing having given him a deadline to vacate.
‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ he insisted, as he took his BMW to a local mechanic after experiencing radiator problems.
In March, the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal heard that Serious used to live in the granny flat beneath the dilapidated property, which stands among the mansions overlooking picturesque Pittwater.
The tribunal was told the owner had allowed Serious to move into the granny flat, as the former screen star was living rough in his ageing BMW sedan, but he moved into the main house when Mr Porter was put into care.
On April 24, the tribunal initially gave Serious six weeks to move out, Charlton told Daily Mail.
‘But his lawyer said he needed 12 weeks because he’s a sick man with lymphoma,’ she said.
In July he was seen taking the BMW to a mechanic with apparent radiator problems
Serious – and his wild haircut at the time – became suddenly famous when he starred in 1988’s Young Einstein movie and then 1993’s Reckless Kelly.
But he later fell on hard times and was taken in by Porter and Charlton several years ago. He was recently seen looking very gaunt, amid concerns for his health.
Serious told the tribunal he should be allowed to remain in the home because he was Mr Porter’s carer, which Ms Charlton strongly disputes.
‘Phillip – we call him Phillip, not Charles, is a family friend, he has been for years and years,’ she said.
‘He’s never been married, never had children, so he made me power of attorney and trustee.
‘He was getting old and getting dementia, and was having trouble looking after himself, so I was doing all his cooking.
‘It wasn’t like Yahoo was his carer. He wasn’t bathing him or dressing him. I was washing his clothes, we had a cleaner coming in.’
