In southern Baghdad's fancy Al-Jadrieh neighborhood, Hussein al-Huwaidi, his six children, daughter-in-law, granddaughter and orphaned niece are living in one of Saddam's sons' many villas, hoping nobody will come to evict them.

Neighbors said Uday Saddam Hussein, the elder son who has gone missing with the rest of his family since his father's regime was toppled two weeks ago, used that particular villa to throw orgies with prostitutes.

One of them produced a picture of Uday giggling with a heavily made-up woman at a party he threw at the house. Both are holding a large caliber black automatic handgun.

The Huwaidi family had first hoped to live in the actual mansion but was soon relegated to the servants' and bodyguards' quarters.

"Some people from Ahmad Chalabi's party came and seized the villa, saying it was theirs," explains Huwaidi.

A picture of Chalabi, who heads the US-based Iraqi National Congress and is now among the many contenders to Iraq's future leadership, has been scotch-taped to one of the villa's outside walls.

A few blocks away, the so-far-unknown Freedom and Democracy Party snatched the lavish house of Saddam's half-brother, Watban Ibrahim al-Hassan, as attested by writing on its wall, saying it was now its "headquarters."

Hussein al-Huwaidi, 67, a former officer in Saddam's now defunct army, said his family came all the way from Kirkuk, in northern Iraq, after their house was demolished in US bombings.

"On the third day of the war, I left with the children except for Wissan who is a soldier," said Hussein's wife Kitba, 60.

Hussein and Wissam met up with the family in Baghdad when the regime fell on April 9, walking most of the 300 kilometers (180 miles) separating Kirkuk from the Iraqi capital.

Hussein admitted he did not fight and soon surrendered to the coalition forces.

He now prays for better times in Iraq. "The first step towards freedom is when we are no longer afraid, I have freed myself from fear," he said.

"The political parties here are mushrooming, promising freedom, progress and a better economic situation but (Saddam's) Baath Party also said that in the past and it was all talk," he said.

"But not everything was bad under Saddam, he was brave and could hold the country together. Now religion is resurfacing and being mixed with politics, it's not good," Hussein added.

But Kitba's main concern was to stay put in Uday's villa.

"We've lost our home, I hope whoever comes next doesn't throw us out," she said.

Squatting is becoming more common in the chaotic landscape of post-war Iraq, with locals moving into any available flat and even Saddam's jails.

Fatma Hawar and her six children found refuge in one house in the Talbieh section of Baghdad that was used as a jail under Saddam, complete with torture implements and a room for hangings.

"We were renting one room for seven in the Salam neighborhood, and when the war ended we decided to look for a more spacious flat," said Hawar, who knows she is just house-sitting for the owner who was exiled to Iran.

"What can we do? When they come back, we'll have to go. I leave it up to God."

Back in southern Baghdad, on Abu Nuwas street, several families are squatting in flats formerly inhabited by employees of Saddam's presidential office.

"Not so long ago, we could not even pass by here for fear of being arrested," said Ali, a young Shiite man.

"We were crammed up at home with 40 people living there, when Saddam's employees left, we waited for the looters to clear up the place and settled here," he said.

He and dozens of other families that also squat in the apartment block overlooking the Euphrates river have painted "inhabited" on the outside brick walls. "It's to signal to looters that the place is now lived in," explained Ali.

"We're just poor people, I hope the future government lets us stay here," sighed Im Yasser, his mother.

SPACE.WIRE