
In London 'Guardians' live in empty office buildings - anigbrowl
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304549504579319373775553890?mod=WSJ_hps_MIDDLE_Video_Third&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304549504579319373775553890.html%3Fmod%3DWSJ_hps_MIDDLE_Video_Third&fpid=2,7,121,122,201,401,641,1009
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waterlesscloud
In college I worked nights as a security guard for a year or so. I was often
assigned to empty buildings, which apparently made the insurance cheaper.

The weirdest place I worked was for a couple weeks in an refrigerated food
warehouse. It was soon to open, but hadn't yet. It was HUGE and one big chunk
was kept at 40 F and another big chunk at -10 F. All I had to do was sit in an
office all night and walk around the place 3 times during the night. Perfect
job for studying, really. But I had to have a thick jacket and a hat for my
patrols!

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bodski
_" There are some hitches. No parties are allowed. She needs permission to go
on vacation. There is a hole in the kitchen ceiling. She had to paint over a
swath of graffiti. The four-week notice to move out can come any time._"

So, apart from the vacation part, pretty much the same as renting privately in
the UK then.

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jackgavigan
Squatting in commercial property is a real problem in London. There's a lot of
hot air about homelessness but your typical squatter is simply a criminal
scumbag who's taking advantage of a loophole in a law originally introduced to
prevent slum landlords from forcibly evicting tenants.

Check the photo attached to this news article for en example of the sort of
damage caused by "squatters": [http://www.london-
se1.co.uk/news/view/7087](http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/7087)

~~~
tfgg
So people should freeze on the streets so property owners can keep their
buildings empty? Fuck that, squatting laws are to make sure property is being
used and not hoarded. Whether squatting is right is independent of any
criminal activity that might happen during squats.

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mseebach
If squatters could be consistently relied on to leave when the building was
going to be used, nobody would have a problem with them.

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runarberg
Again, squatting is not the issue, but human decency. If the owner would give
her/his consent, it would be really hard for a squatter (given that she/he has
human decency) to oppose eviction, given a good reason for why she/he has to
leave.

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mseebach
But when consent wasn't given in the first place, the duty to leave when given
a good reason vanishes?

It's some pretty curious moral arithmetic you've got going on there.

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runarberg
I don't know. Threre are numerous examples of a consent being given _after_
squatters move in. In most cases the owner has nothing to loose, so a consent
makes perfect sense if you want to keep good comunication with those who are
using your property.

~~~
mseebach
And there are numerous examples of squatters who don't leave when given a good
reason. Squatters who have the consent of the landlord aren't really squatters
in any meaningful sense.

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yetanotherphd
It's great that someone is finally disrupting the squatting market.

The contracts that these so called guardians have seem strange though. Are
they standard rental contracts, because the conditions described wouldn't be
legal where I live. I wonder if courts will at some stage decide that there
people really are renting, and are therefore entitled to all the legal
protection of renters.

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darkr
> It's great that someone is finally disrupting the squatting market.

You mean _anti_-squatting market?

These kind of companies have thrived in Europe over the past few years due to
a wholescale clampdown of squatters rights, with the Netherlands and England*
making it outright illegal in 2010 and 2012 respectively.

*In England, the term "squatting" is defined in legal terms to mean "the act of knowingly entering a _residential_ building as a trespasser and living there". Entering a non-residential building without permission is still not illegal, provided you don't cause any damage.

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blueskin_
Squatters' rights? What's next, muggers' rights?

I'm glad to see a turn back from punishing the victims of crime to punishing
the perpetrators. Perhaps now the government can do something about
prosecutions of people for attacking burglars in their own home, another
longstanding victim-punishing law.

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runarberg
Mugging is an act of violence. It violates the victims freedom of action and
causes great damage.

Squatting is a non-violent act. It provides shelter to someone who didn't have
it before. The owner of the shelter can be unaware of the fact that his
property is being used for several months, emphasizing the lack of damage by
the act.

Evicting a squatter, on the other hand, causes damage to the victim in fact,
it removes a shelter from someone.

So mugging and squatting are two _very_ different acts

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blueskin_
Not always though. There are cases where people have gone on holiday and had
their homes invaded and damaged, their possessions stolen (and often sold for
drugs), and have been stuck with long and costly legal battles to regain what
is rightfully theirs. Squatting violates the victims' freedom of property. If
insulting someone verbally can be referred to as violent, so should stealing
their home and possessions.

I'm less concerned with invasion of business properties - while it should
still be illegal, there is less loss to a business, who also typically have
the legal staff and expertise as well as funds to get rid of them more swiftly
and easily.

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runarberg
May I note that theft, invasion of privacy, and vandalism are all violent
crimes that causes harm to the victim[1]. Those crimes can follow almost any
human acts, such as partying (party people mug), alcohol consumption (drunk
people steal), protests (politically opposing people vandalize), but you
wouldn't say those things are equal, you would look at these marginal cases as
a subset and to be treated as separate acts.

In short. Squatting is sometimes, _but rarely_ followed with more violent and
damaging crimes. But squatting in it self are _not_ those crimes.

\--- [1] with exception, of course, in the case of vandalism, if no the
"owner" is oblivious of its value, or when vandalism acts to prevent further
vandalism, like the destruction of military tools and weapons.

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mcv
"Peculiar law"? Dutch laws aren't that different. A property has to have been
empty for at least a year before it becomes legal to squat (and I believe
these rules have been tightened further a couple of years ago, but I'm not
entirely up to date).

The reason to have squatting legal (with restrictions) is to make it
unattractive to keep buildings unused in the face of housing shortage. Find
some use for it or turn it into housing. If you don't, eventually, someone
else can.

~~~
ry0ohki
It's peculiar compared to the United States, where there are pretty much no
squatters rights in most cities.

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drpancake
This is common in Amsterdam too. I have a friend in this situation and she has
had to move 10 times in 7 years. The rent is damn cheap though; something like
150 EUR/month.

~~~
easy_rider
Churches, schools. Yes. some offices? maybe. Yet its not allowed for the big
empty office buildings, since they do not provide all the sanitary needs, and
are usually cut off from power and electricity altogether. Also wondering how
much guardians will be needed in the future now that squatting is punishable
and has been upped to up to 2 years in jail.

~~~
blueskin_
That still only applies to homes; it needs to be extended to commercial
premises first.

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fauldsh
Don't offices and residential buildings have different building regulations,
not to mention licenses. I don't know much on the subject but it would't
surprise me if this was either illegal or only legal in a small set of cases
where the buildings are up to standard.

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chippy
My friend is in one of these in North London - they say it's great, although
it is sharing. Sharing with about thirty others, but in their wing or flat
there's about five. It does appear that most properties have shared space, so
you get a bedroom but have to share the bathroom and living spaces.

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mikeleeorg
I wonder if they ever rent office buildings to startups. Or entire families or
groups of people.

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buro9
Yes, they do.

The UK-based YC startup Tuxebo used property guardianship to reduce their
costs.

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Luc
The company Camelot arranges this in several European countries. I have seen
their posters on nice medieval monumental buildings owned by the state, too.
Here's a map of properties available:
[http://uk.cameloteurope.com/8/0/available-
properties/availab...](http://uk.cameloteurope.com/8/0/available-
properties/available-properties.html)

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alexkus
Seems odd, even with the interesting conditions (no hot water or no
electricity in some rooms), that with demand allegedly so high the "rents" are
still so low.

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rfnslyr
What do I even begin googling to find this in my city? Toronto.

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gaius
It will depend on what your laws on squatting are. In the UK these are very
biased in favour of the squatter; invading someone's property isn't a crime
here, so the police won't do anything, it is a long drawn out and extremely
expensive process for the legitimate owner to go through the courts to get an
eviction order, and other than having to leave, the squatters get off Scot
free.

[http://www.standard.co.uk/news/i-moved-out-for-decorators-
an...](http://www.standard.co.uk/news/i-moved-out-for-decorators-and-
squatters-took-over-my-house-6527260.html)

~~~
collingwood
I think invading is too strong a term here because it implies force and
violence. As your link indicates, squatters can only move in to a building
which is 'unoccupied'.

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tehwalrus
indeed, and can only do so without "breaking" any locks or windows (so it
isn't "breaking and entering," which is the legal name of burglary.)

A properly secured property, where you make sure all windows are repaired and
doors and windows are locked, is basically safe from squatters, assuming you
get all the entrances (many old Victorian houses have common loft spaces, so
when residential squatting was legal people could find one unlocked door in
the street and claim a whole terrace. I heard of a priest who did it once in
Lancashire somewhere and then used the row as almshouses.)

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dagw
_A properly secured property, where you make sure all windows are repaired and
doors and windows are locked, is basically safe from squatters_

A common tactic is to do it in two passes. First one dude comes along, smashes
in the locks and walks away. Then a couple of night later a second group of
dudes come along and find the house unlocked and 'legally' move in. So you
basically have to have security people check your buildings at least once a
night.

~~~
tehwalrus
Indeed, that's why I said _" where you make sure all windows are repaired"_.

