351–360 of 930 posts
The sad resolution after lots of headache and thinking was to pay the invaders the 5000EUR they demanded to move out.
There was some followup information about what happened after this. She was picked up by a car and taken to the next place to occupy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I got it. I just think that would mainly mean investors exit the market. If it is less profitable, they either further raise the prices or they get out of the market; the ratio of those two options depends on price elasticity. And prices don't have a lot of room to grow further in my opinion... unless of course the wages grow quickly (and minimum wage indeed has done it in the last 5 years). But then the country…
And what happens when people leave the rental market? Fewer apartments for rent. And what happens to rental prices when there's a scarcity of apartments to rent? Prices go up.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's not a small problem, there's like 12K cases per year last time I checked. https://maldita.es/malditateexplica/20221026/datos-okupacion... has the actual data (in Spanish): * 10-17k cases of occupation annually (rising until 2021, but down in 2022 and further down in 2023: https://www.cronista.com/espana/actualidad-es/adios-okupas-c... ) * Of those ~15k, 5% are actually occupation of somebody's residence (allan…
> That is to say: it is a problem (the 500 - 1000 cases per year nationwide of occupation of people's homes is clearly problematic) but it's not a really widespread problem for most middle-class people (the vast majority of people even in the middle classes do not own totally unused property). I don’t understand the point of trying to downplay or diminish this problem. Is dividing the victims along arbitrary class li…
That was in reply to the parent comment, arguing this is a serious problem primarily for the "not-so-rich middle class" that is being ignored because we falsely imagine it's mainly a problem for banks and rich people.
In fact, the data suggests this really is primarily a problem for commercial landlords and property speculators, and the risks for typical homeowners is very low.
This is in sharp contrast to most media coverage, and the parent comment, which paint a picture of substantial risks that your personal home will be taken over by squatters. That is not true. The real level of risk to the average Spaniard is very roughly 2x the risk that they'll be murdered this year - not absolutely zero, but not very far from something you'd worry about day-to-day in Spain.
I live in Spain and own property in Spain. There's clearly a gap between imaginary noble okupas addressing housing crisis via occupation of unused bank property and reality of weed smoking anarchists and their collaborating deoccupying mafia harassing mostly not-so-rich middle class, who can't afford the security measures the rich can. It's not a small problem, there's like 12K cases per year last time I checked. Eve…
I had a friend who bought a house that needed a lot of work. Before he could get started on the remodel, someone broke in to the empty house, changed the locks, and started occupying it.
I remember being shocked that someone could do this and be protected under the law. He had to follow a formal eviction process, even though they broke into his house and never had any agreement. The perpetrators were known to the police as professional squatters and they advised him on all the things to avoid doing so they wouldn’t countersue him, which was mind blowing.
Even weirder was to watch the reaction on his social media when he posted the story. A lot of people, including many of his friends, jumped to defending squatter’s rights or trying to make some broader point about inequality.
There’s something about squatting that appeals to people who think it’s always a RobinHood situation: Stealing from the rich, giving to the poor. It’s more fun to imagine these people as noble warriors against an unjust society, rather than seem them as people abusing the laws for personal gain at the expense of random victims. Even here on HN there are comments trying to downplay the issue by portraying the victims as mostly wealthy or landlords, which are presumably acceptable victims to people who like these kind of narratives.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US, I knew someone who owned a second house in the same city that they had never lived in and planned to rent out in the future. When someone broke in and squatted there early in covid, they reacted as though the squatters were in the house they actually currently lived in - describing their fear and trauma in a way such that people who didn't know the story sometimes literally thought someone had broken into…
Squatting is a problem, period. Doesn’t matter if the house is empty or not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That is to say: it is a problem (the 500 - 1000 cases per year nationwide of occupation of people's homes is clearly problematic) but it's not a really widespread problem for most middle-class people (the vast majority of people even in the middle classes do not own totally unused property). I don’t understand the point of trying to downplay or diminish this problem. Is dividing the victims along arbitrary class li…
> Is dividing the victims along arbitrary class lines and arguing that most victims are not “middle class” supposed to make it better? The class lines aren't arbitrary: a squatter in someone's unused third vacation property or whatever is causing much less harm than a squatter claiming someone's only residence while they're out of town. So yes, the dynamics of who it happens to can make it better or worse. The only r…