The worst part of the story for me was the puppy. I couldn't care about her, but poor puppy
What's poor about the puppy here? It sounds like when something bad happened this person helped keep the puppy safe
A stranger secretly lived in my home
111–120 of 199 posts
Re: A stranger secretly lived in my home
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yes. His house. She told the cops she felt in danger. Cops told him he had to stay somewhere else and go through the eviction process. Mad world. The pendulum needed to swing toward protecting women by default. As these things happen, it may have swung to a point where nuance needs to be applied. Your example seems fairly complex. I couldn't opine on it w/o knowing the details of the complaint. I can offer a differ…
> The pendulum needed to swing toward protecting women by default He owned the house. If she felt in danger, the cops should come and escort her out of the house that doesn't belong to her. I don't see how your story is related to this.
But they lived together there? Even when it's under the status of a romantic relationship, that's still at least partially a tenant-landlord relationship and as such the tenant has rights. Setting aside all the gender politics - you don't get to evict a tenant at a moment's notice. And yeah, he got evicted sorta. But he still owns the house. I'm not saying it's an ideal situation... but given the tenant landlord power imbalance, I don't think it's actually obvious that he gets to keep living there and she doesn't just because they've separated.
Re: A stranger secretly lived in my home
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your office got off lucky. We had a guy walk into our office behind employees. No one challenged the trespasser... he walked off with a stack of laptops.
As a teenager I worked in a large logistics center for supermarkets. Usually we would fill trucks that brought the supplies to the supermarkets, but rarely they had ran out of something small and would come to us with a van or so. So one day two guys drive up with a van, park it at a loading dock, go into the warehouse and start loading the van with coffee. They even got help from some workers. Turns out they weren't…
Reminds me of a gang I heard about a couple decades ago that would just roll up in a moving van to a nice suburban house in a neighborhood where nobody really talked to each other and just empty the place.
Re: A stranger secretly lived in my home
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sadly that person could be charged with a crime instead of being recognized as a person in need. We should be viewing these situations as a cry for help instead of a criminal activity. This is what I hoped the "Defund the Police" movement was targeting. Sadly that phrase had good intentions but pretty bad optics.
Even more sad is the fact that, although it's probably rare, there are some people who will commit crimes in order to get arrested, because it gets them off the street. https://www.vice.com/en/article/4agyzq/a-homeless-mississipp...
It’a not too rare.
A relative who is a policeman knows 2-3 guys too old to migrate south for the winter who commit some misdemeanor in front of a cop to spend the winter at the county lockup.
Beat officers often feed these guys and help them out in small ways.
Re: A stranger secretly lived in my home
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I visited SanFran a couple of years ago, and this reminded me of a homeless guy, in his late 60s I imagine, that I saw at a fast food chain. So I was I think at in-and-out, and a homeless guy was going through the garbage bin to find food. When I came over to dump my stuff in the bin, he was immediately considerate and stepped aside so I could dump the covers and napkins, whilst making sibilant sounds and keeping his…
I would assume that you would have to very mentally stable to resist all that humiliation without going nuts. I have a friend that wasn't homeless, but all unemployment money was used on rent required to keep his shared custody (without an apartment to house the kids, you cannot have custody). He always was clean and used good clothes, but he made the line with homeless people to get free food daily. Otherwise he wou…
This is a very interesting observation but also one that could support a few different interpretations. Is it that women enjoy at last a social circumstance where they are superior to men? Or is it men realising the brunt of their experience and the extent of their fall when receiving help from women? I would think it’s mostly the latter, given the volunteer women or men I know all have dedicated significant part of their lives to helping people, not men or women or children or elders specifically.
Re: A stranger secretly lived in my home
#116I had a tacit agreement with a homeless guy I discovered one day sleeping in my car. I'll keep the doors unlocked and you don't mess it up and by 7 am you're gone. He was by far the best tenant I ever had, we did this for close to two years and then I moved. The area where I lived was an older industrial zone in the East of Amsterdam, there wasn't a whole lot around there other than a salvation army post and I figure…
I did a similar thing in San Francisco when working at the ballpark.
Someone smashed my window, and someone stole my radio. (I knew the cops wouldn't do anything besides laugh.)
Didn't care about the radio, but that window bothered me.
I decided to keep the doors unlocked, and carried a portable radio to work. (Too cheap to pay for parking.)
I put a sign on the rear window, "Please go ahead and sit in the truck, or sleep in the bed, but Don't Break Anything. Everything is unlocked."
It was an old Toyota, and it had a kill switch hidden.
Never had a problem again.
There were days when I would find cash in the glove box. I don't think it was tip. I think my truck was being used as a drug drop, but didn't care.
Re: A stranger secretly lived in my home
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yes. His house. She told the cops she felt in danger. Cops told him he had to stay somewhere else and go through the eviction process. Mad world. The pendulum needed to swing toward protecting women by default. As these things happen, it may have swung to a point where nuance needs to be applied. Your example seems fairly complex. I couldn't opine on it w/o knowing the details of the complaint. I can offer a differ…
> The pendulum needed to swing toward protecting women by default He owned the house. If she felt in danger, the cops should come and escort her out of the house that doesn't belong to her. I don't see how your story is related to this.
If you legally live in someone’s home, in most jurisdictions (in the US) then you have at least some rights even if you don’t pay rent.
The alternative is that one partner can abuse the other, then throw them out on the street if they wish or if the victim complains.
I think it would be better if there was a real third option, but I’m not aware of it.
Re: A stranger secretly lived in my home
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, but laws enforced selectively based on feelings is its own form of tyranny.
It can be but usually isn't. The value of a local, penalty-backed law is in it's ability to guide bulk behavior. These laws imply a bargain we make with our governments, that enforcement will be limited to the stated objective. Reducing traffic speeds by citing a few speeders - this upholds that bargain. Citing every possible speeder while those fines fatten the police budget is a gross perversion.
Maybe my own opinion is coloured by the fact that I live in France, where speeding cameras are very common and seem effective in reducing speeding, but fining every speeder with automatic cameras seems a better solution than citing speeders at random
Re: A stranger secretly lived in my home
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yes. His house. She told the cops she felt in danger. Cops told him he had to stay somewhere else and go through the eviction process. Mad world. The pendulum needed to swing toward protecting women by default. As these things happen, it may have swung to a point where nuance needs to be applied. Your example seems fairly complex. I couldn't opine on it w/o knowing the details of the complaint. I can offer a differ…
> The pendulum needed to swing toward protecting women by default He owned the house. If she felt in danger, the cops should come and escort her out of the house that doesn't belong to her. I don't see how your story is related to this.
I’m not a lawyer, but in my state there is a legal concept of your place of residence which entitles you to certain eviction protections, regardless of ownership or lack thereof of that place.
Re: A stranger secretly lived in my home
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, if you take into consideration how crappy the locks are on those old cars then maybe I had a very cheap security guard ;) He really was a nice old man and super embarrassed about the whole thing. The funniest bit about this is how I discovered he did this, one day I got up too early thinking I was late, rushed out and drove off without my usual morning routine and when I heard a voice behind me asking if he cou…
That's hilarious. How did the rest of the conversation go?
I just dropped him off at the nearest light. He would leave a small bag in the car from then on so he didn't have to lug all his stuff around.
This was around 1989, the location is Veemarkt in Amsterdam ('Veemarkt' is dutch for cattle market).
Back then homeless people in Amsterdam were fairly rare, now there are 100's of them.