Dozens of squatters kicked out of former Seattle Times building; filth, needles found everywhere

SEATTLE -- Police and construction contractors spent hours removing homeless people from the old Seattle Times building Wednesday after the squatters had lived there and trashed the inside for months.

Workers believe the squatters used the Times building as a shelter and playground to do drugs for nine months or more.

A Q13FOX photographer was allowed to take a look at the inside and found piles of feces, jars of urine and syringes discarded all over the building.

Workers estimate anywhere from 40 to 100 people were inside. They worked to clear the people out for several hours and said they kept finding people hiding in corners of the building.

One construction worker said, "Every electrical panel has been completely and utterly stripped. Walls are kicked through and it smells bad. The smell is horrible."

Crews say thieves ripped all the wires away from inside to sell copper at salvage yards for pennies on the dollar.

Workers will spend days welding the building's doors shut and boarding up windows.

The building was left vacant in 2011 after The Seattle Times moved to a nearby building on Denny Way. In 2013, the paper sold the building to the Canadian high-rise developer Onni Group of Vancouver, B.C.