A Texas landlord said she was at her breaking point when she took matters into her own hands and pulled a gun on some people who were hanging out at one of the properties she owns. According to Fox 26 Houston, Anastasia Malavansos was detained by Houston police on Aug. 12, 2026, after she reportedly pulled a gun on some unhoused people who were sleeping outside of one of her vacant properties.
She apparently alerted police to her plans ahead of time by calling 311. But when the police arrived, they took Malavansos into custody, placing her on the ground before putting her in handcuffs.
While she wasn’t charged for waving a gun around at people, she told reporters that she does plan to reach out to local politicians about the situation. That’s because she says she was forced to take matters into her own hands after being unable to rent the vacant property out due to several unhoused people who have been hanging out in the area.
Meanwhile, people online have been using this situation to discuss how certain laws work for property owners, and whether Malavansos should’ve been charged for the incident with the gun, or if she was well within her rights under the castle doctrine.
Malavansos Said She Would Do It All Again
During an interview with a FOX 26 Houston reporter, the woman explained how she received a phone call from a tenant at a neighboring location, who advised her that there were people camping outside her building. “I called 311 on the way over here, so police would meet me here,” she recalled.
But it sounds like Houston Independent School District police at the nearby Lanier Middle School weren’t aware of what was going on, and when they saw a woman waving a gun across the street, they called for help. While Malavansos says the gun was unloaded, police had no way of knowing that, which is how the landlord came to be detained.
When asked if she would do it all over again, Malavansos said, “Yes, I have a right to defend my property.”
The Story Was Shared on the Houston Subreddit
People discussed the story in a post on Reddit, trying to figure out whether Malavansos should’ve been covered under the castle doctrine, which the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) describes as the law that gives individuals legal protection when they use reasonable force to protect themselves in their home (AKA, their castle).
People debated back and forth over whether the proximity to the school should’ve been considered, and whether the fact that the gun was unloaded would’ve made a difference—one Redditor argued that an unloaded gun makes the castle doctrine moot, since, “You can only use that to threaten people, not defend yourself.”
While the Redditors never really came to a formal agreement, it doesn’t seem like Malavansos needed to worry about it much since charges weren’t filed against her anyway. But it still raised some interesting questions about the situation.