Anna Lech, Basia Bednarczyk House Hunting

Have you heard about squattingsquattingsquatting? It is living in someone’s empty propertypropertyproperty without their permissionpermissionpermission. Squatterssquatters [squatter]Squatters are not always homelesshomelesshomeless people. For many, squatting is a matter of choice rather than a necessitynecessitynecessity.

Squatting has its own culture and charmcharmcharm. It attracts people who valuevalue (verb)value freedomfreedomfreedom the most. Costs of living, especially in big cities, can be very high. Some people don’t feel like having a boring nine‑to‑five jobnine‑to‑five jobnine‑to‑five job and don't want to spend their lives working to pay the bills. Squatting lets them run away from routines and worries. Some squatters are artists, painters, poets, musicians, or activists who strongly believe people should be free and allowed to live as they want. They usually live in abandonedabandonedabandoned buildings in larger groups or communescommunes [commune]communes. Sometimes these houses are located in expensive neighborhoods. Squatters look after their squat building together and help each other. For them relations and freedom are more important than money.

Finding the right place for squatting is not easy and it’s important to know the law. In many countries squatting itself is not illegalillegalillegal as long as squatters do not damagedamagedamage the building. Squatters observe the chosen building for a long time before they are sure it’s really empty and no one visits it. Then they enter the house, try to clean it up, repair broken doors or windows, install a new lock on the door, fixfix fix some things up so that there is no evidenceevidenceevidence they do harm to the building. Doing any damage is forbidden. Squatters have to prove they look after the building. They also try to stay invisible and avoid troubleavoid troubleavoid trouble with the police.

Squatting often means living in harshharshharsh conditionsconditions [condition]conditions without heatingheatingheating, electricity or running waterrunning waterrunning water. Knowing that, squatters however focus more on meeting people, gaining skillsgaining skills [to gain skills]gaining skills, and building a communitybuilding a community [build a community]building a community. And that keeps them alive.

1 Źródło: Basia Bednarczyk, Anna Lech, licencja: CC BY-SA 3.0.