Squatting

[Lexicus]

That was not my point. Let me rephrase. If all people of European descent in America are squatters, is everyone of non-European descent in Europe a squatter?

Consider the drastically different historical processes by which people of European descent showed up in America, and people of non-European descent showed up in Europe, the answer to your question is no.

 

[luiz]

Consider the drastically different historical processes by which people of European descent showed up in America, and people of non-European descent showed up in Europe, the answer to your question is no.

Actually the latter process is closer to what we call squatting. But neither are really comparable.

Also: see the history of Spain, Portugal, Sicily, Malta, Russia, Cyprus, and all of southeastern Europe. Ever wonder why Bosniaks and Albanians are predominantly Muslim? Or why southern Italians and Spaniards are so tanned?

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Lexicus doesn't believe in property or land ownership anyway, and especially that it shouldn't be inherited by following generations, so I don't think he can really have a problem with either

 

[Lexicus]

Actually the latter process is closer to what we call squatting.

Also: see the history of Spain, Portugal, Sicily, Malta, Russia, Cyprus, and all of southeastern Europe.

Passing over the complications in this narrative (obviously, you're right that some non-Europeans are in Europe due to conquest, although examining the actual histories there would entail what exactly we mean by "European" which is never quite obvious, and...whatever, passing over), if the latter process is closer to what we call squatting, the former process is closer to what we call armed robbery.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

LOL I've been avoiding this thread because I thought it was about squatting, the exercise.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Calm down Valka, it's a joke. I was referencing an Eddie Izzard bit:

Hat's off to you, your initial posts were pretty awesome trolling. I was going to type a furious response to you and then got to this video. Well done!

I thought this thread was gonna be about exercise form. Huge disappointment, needless to say. I try to squat daily with some added weights. Helps keep me in shape.

I'm not the only one!

Some U.S. states know of a legal concept known as adverse possession in which squatted piece of land eventually becomes property of the squatters, provided it is abandoned.

Yup, happened to a coworker.

His mother owned two neighboring houses and she let his deadbeat brother live in one of them for free. It was meant to be a temporary thing to help him on his feet but stretched out for over a decade. Then one day she got served with papers because her son was taking her to court. If she had only charged him a dime in rent even once, she would have been able to put up a fight and retain the house.

As it was, he got it scott-free with almost no contest from her lawyer. Not that he didn't try but the way the law is written in Missouri made it impossible in her particular situation to really do anything about it.

Exactly. Such laws are in place to encourage property owners to actually make use of the property they own, rather than just let it sit there unoccupied and disused. Basically, it's the state telling property owners "Hey, if you don't want your land to be stolen from you, you better make use of it".

This is true and these laws were dramatically abused by the KKK at various points. They would run blacks out of their homes with violence and then start paying taxes on the land. After a few years, they claimed adverse possession and with years of tax receipts to back them up and clear evidence that the previous owners had abandoned it, they got title for essentially nothing. It's pretty horrific and shows how intertwined issues of racism are with economic advantage.

 

[Commodore]

This is true and these laws were dramatically abused by the KKK at various points.

Yeah, it is open to abuse, but at the same time we can't just let people allow their property to fall into disuse. We have a problem here in Cincinnati with abandoned homes and it costs the local government a lot of money either maintaining those properties or fighting with their owners to get them to maintain them. Personally, I think city council should launch a covert effort to get some of our homeless to start occupying those abandoned properties so they can be snatched away from their deadbeat owners (which are usually banks since most of the abandoned properties are foreclosures from the 2008 recession).

So while I agree that an effort should be made to "tighten up" adverse possession laws to curtail abuse, I don't have a problem with such laws existing in the first place.

 

[Katie88]

Yup, happened to a coworker.

His mother owned two neighboring houses and she let his deadbeat brother live in one of them for free. It was meant to be a temporary thing to help him on his feet but stretched out for over a decade. Then one day she got served with papers because her son was taking her to court. If she had only charged him a dime in rent even once, she would have been able to put up a fight and retain the house.

As it was, he got it scott-free with almost no contest from her lawyer. Not that he didn't try but the way the law is written in Missouri made it impossible in her particular situation to really do anything about it.

Here, for something to count as adverse possession, the occupation needs to take place without permission from the owner. So if the mother had given him permission then it wouldn't have counted, even if he didn't pay rent or offer any other consideration. I guess things are different in Missouri, though.

 

[Lexicus]

Yeah, it is open to abuse, but at the same time we can't just let people allow their property to fall into disuse. We have a problem here in Cincinnati with abandoned homes and it costs the local government a lot of money either maintaining those properties or fighting with their owners to get them to maintain them. Personally, I think city council should launch a covert effort to get some of our homeless to start occupying those abandoned properties so they can be snatched away from their deadbeat owners (which are usually banks since most of the abandoned properties are foreclosures from the 2008 recession).

So while I agree that an effort should be made to "tighten up" adverse possession laws to curtail abuse, I don't have a problem with such laws existing in the first place.

This is a great idea! You might want to look up resistance to foreclosure during the Depression, too. There were a lot of foreclosures then, and local communities found many different ways to defy the banks and stand with the foreclosed victims.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Yeah that's a great idea @Commodore

 

[Katie88]

Personally, I think city council should launch a covert effort to get some of our homeless to start occupying those abandoned properties so they can be snatched away from their deadbeat owners (which are usually banks since most of the abandoned properties are foreclosures from the 2008 recession).

It's not a bad idea, but there may be practical difficulties. Often these properties are in a poor state of repair; some are simply unfit for human habitation. The homeless are likely to lack the resources to make the necessary repairs and improvements. It would be better to give local authorities more powers to seize empty properties. They could then bring the properties up to standard and turn them into decent public housing.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

That's not the American way.

 

[Commodore]

Yeah that's a great idea @Commodore

We do have a guy who ran for city council on the issue of getting banks to start maintaining their foreclosed properties. I liked his campaign slogan: "Banks may be too big to fail, but not too big to mow the lawn."

 

[Leifmk]

Isn't squatting (as in a house) rather unhygienic?

Well it can be but it doesn't have to be. AFAIK a lot of squatters do take good care of the places they inhabit.

It is also of course possible to live in complete filth and squalor in a house that you are legally entitled to live in.

In the end I guess it comes down to the old proverb: Life is like a sewer; what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

 

[Katie88]

All true, but I think it's fair to say that squatted properties tend to be in a worse state.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Well it can be but it doesn't have to be. AFAIK a lot of squatters do take good care of the places they inhabit.

It is also of course possible to live in complete filth and squalor in a house that you are legally entitled to live in.

In the end I guess it comes down to the old proverb: Life is like a sewer; what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

Only to an extent. At some point the state intervenes and condemns the place.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Only to an extent. At some point the state intervenes and condemns the place.

Do you think this place would qualify for condemnation?

 

[Oerdin]

No, but I thought this guide is pretty helpful when I watched it a while back:

Now... That was entertaining.

 

[Leifmk]

Only to an extent. At some point the state intervenes and condemns the place.

That point can be pretty far across the horizon in some cases. Depending on jurisdiction, local practices, closeness of oversight, etc.

 

[Yeekim]

Yes, I get your point. It revels the idiocy behind the intrinsic idea of squatting, or even more concrete, material ownership of land: The fact that somehow, living in a geographically seperate area for a certain amount of time gives you any sort of territorial claim over it. The Indians, just like the European settlers, migrated to America at some point. There are no true indigenous peoples, just a bunch of hairless monkeys that left Africa at some point.

Wouldn't have expected such a nihilistic nonsense from you, really.