You can shorten the 15 to 10 if you pay the taxes and to 5 if you can get yourself on as a cloud in the title.
I think that since many thousands of homes have been left for the county to eventually take over squatting by adverse possession is not only morally right, but a necessary element to help save the neighborhoods from disappearing. I have been studying this and the process of quieting a title; which is what you do to completely own it after the required time of occupying it.
But I've noticed something while discussing the subject with Detroiters and wonder this:
Why in Detroit where squatting is so common that it is such a dirty word and a threatening word, squat, instilling fear so much among Detroiters?