#big problems

From “Part 2, An Army of Ants!” in Tales to Astonish #35, September 1962. Stan Lee plot, Larry Lieber script, Jack Kirby pencils, Dick Ayers inks, Stan Goldberg colors, Joe Letterese letters.

You know what makes me sick? Squatting. Aka those people that sneak into houses and flats that are not theirs, and claim it as their own house.

Because in France, squatters and squatting is a true plague. It is a true plague because home-invaders are PROTECTED BY THE LAW! Yep, French law is just so sick.

Let me give you an example.

A grandmother lives alone in a little house somewhere in the suburbs. One day, she gets dementia and has to be hospitalized. Her daughter arrives. She takes her out of her house, because it is too dangerous for her to leave alone, and she takes her to the hospital, and then to a retirement house. Meanwhile the grandmother’s own little house stands empty. Well-closed, but empty. When the daughter discovers that to pay for the retirement home (and not to throw her mother into the public hell-holes where they beat up elder people) she needs more money than planned, she decides to sell her grandmother’s empty home. It is where she spent her childhood, but her mother’s health is more important.

But as she discovers, a family entered the house. They broke into the house one night, changed the locks and are now living in the house. They are squatters. They claim the house is theirs, and that they will stay there, and not leave.

You say: but the house does not belong to them! The daughter can still call the police for them to get out, no? Well... No. Because the law protect these kind of home-invaders. You see, there is a loophole in the French law. People can’t be dislodged of their domicile. But “domicile” has a very vague meaning in the French law - it is just your main dwelling. If you can prove that you live somewhere all the time, then it becomes your “domicile”. You don’t even have to own the place. 

And that’s how all the squatters and home-invaders work. They enter a place they never bought or that does no belong to them. They sign up contracts to install something : it can be a contract with a new electric company ; it can be a contract to install Internet or a new phone line ; any kind of contract works. Companies never check if people own the place they claim to be their domicile. So the companies do their work there, leave their contracts, and these contracts are enough. They are proofs that this place is your domicile. Home-invaders just present them to the law and say “This is proof that it is my domicile. We might not own the place, but we still live there, we claimed it as our domicile, and so you can’t get us away”. And thus the daughter can’t sell or even enter her mother’s house, and has to enter a long legal battle to get back the ownership of the place. A very costy battle, as it will need the hiring of several law experts. 

Because here you see, the home-invaders have all on their side. They claim the house was “abandoned” - and this already puts the law in their favor because invading an abandoned place is less punishable than an “occupied” place, and if the home is empty long enough, it can be claimed “abandoned” by unscrupulous people. Proving it is not means spending money to prove it in front of the law. As the home-invaders did not rent the place, there is no “renter-owner” relationship between the two, and the daughter can’t even have them expelled through her quality of owner. And the home-invaders are a family! EVEN BETTER! Because when squatting is proven, people can be expelled quite fast... if there is just one person. Multiple persons, it takes longer. And if there are children? Even longer - especially if they are minors. That’s why nowadays most squatting cases are about families invading so-called “abandoned” buildings. Or even whole groups! We are talking groups of twenty to forty people! Of course the living conditions tend to be dreadful, with filth, overcrowding and more... But the home-invaders don’t care, because they know they’ll be expelled one of these days, plus they are not the owners of the place so not responsible. They can literally do everything they want until they are kicked out - leaving behind them a huge mess that will require extensive cleaning (or even extensive work if they destroy parts of the home - it happens, they can leave stealing things such as sinks or ovens).  If the home-invasion happens around the “dark season” it is even worse, because due to a law originally made to protect the poor, it becomes terribly hard if not impossible to expel people during winter. Any kind of people, including home invaders, you can only expel them in the “bright season”. 

At least, if the daughter can prove that there was a breaking-and-entering to take possession of the house (windows broken, doors broken), it will allow proving the home-invasion much faster, and once the state of squatting is recognized by the law, the procedures to expel them can start. But long and costly procedures, that can take up to several years. Some cases are not as lucky. Lots of squatters find ways to take possession of the domicile without breaking and entering. Like stealing the key, or obtaining it from someone else. If let’s say you leave a copy of your key to a trusted neighbor or friend, to keep the house while your are gone on holidays or on a business trip, and they steal this copy of the key and enter the house... well you’re screwed and you’ll need a lot of wits and strength to obtain back your belonging. Especially since, as it is their “domicile” and they constantly stay in there to make sure no one can expel them when they’re not here, they can install all sorts of things to keep the rightful owners out - all sorts of security systems designed to prevent the one who actually owns the house to even step a foot near it.

Of course, in front of such situations, the rightful owners can try to take the matters in their own hands. Because you see, to target empty houses, home-invaders search for vulnerable people. They search for recently built houses that haven’t yet been occupied by the family that bought it ; they search for elderly people who have to leave for a long time due to going to the hospital or something similar ; they search for families going on holidays, or houses that were just inherited after someone passed away but the heir isn’t here yet. And they enter and they invade and they claim it as their own, and throwing them out needs a lot of time, money and effort. There’s several hundred cases of it across France - thanks to these law loopholes spreading so fast in today’s age. Some home-invaders are homeless, jobless people or families. Others are criminals that live on stealing and invading. Some are foreigners not speaking a word of French and wants to have a free place to live in. Sometimes they are actually victims of the business, as they are sold or given the house not knowing they are becoming squatters. But these last cases are rare: usually home-invasions are malevolent and willingly done.

As I said: what happens if the rightful owners decides to take action by themselves? Since the police can’t do anything until a judgement allows the expulsion of the invaders, you have to wait for the law - but given the law is a very long process in France which demands you to spend a lot of time and money building evidences, files and finding the right persons to hire and go to, some people can’t stand waiting for what is sometimes years. What happens if you break into the house that is yours and expel by force the owners? What happens if you wait for the home-invaders to leave and quickly change the locks while they are gone? What happens then? THEN YOU’RE SCREWED! Because as I said, the “domicile-protecting” law. The home-invaders can call a lawyer and sue your ass off, for breaking and entering or expelling them of their “rightful domicile”, no matter if you own the place and they were occupying it “illegally”. They can sue you off, and YOU ACTUALLY RISK MORE THAN THE HOME-INVADERS! The home-invaders, at most, will get from the law a firm expulsion. But they won’t go to jail, they won’t lose everything, they won’t have to pay anything: clean up the invaded place, taking ownership of it, any kind of expenses to repair the damages of the home-invader? That’s on the owner who is getting back the home! (And this is why some petty home-invaders break down everything in the home once they learn they are going to leave). But if the owner takes personal actions against them... the law will punish them. At best, they’ll have to pay for the home invaders. At worst they can face prison.

This is a plague that everybody is denouncing in France for years now, as squatting is booming... but the law hasn’t changed - because the loopholes and the laws the home-invaders use were originally designed to protect the poor and the homeless and people will low-income, and renters at the end of bad landlords. As a result they are very difficult to unwrap... and the home-invaders, the squatters, fester like hideous human cockroaches. They take advantage of the elderly, of the sick, of grieving family memebers, of people who want to start a new life elsewhere, and then sneak in and spit their poison in their face and ruin what is for many a childhood home, a sweet house for their children to grow up, the results of their yearlong savings - but what is for them just a free place they can crash in and can go out of without any kind of consequence. 

not my gif, just how i feel, lol. 

Me writing fanfic about our cedric: oh yes, and then he’d say this and this and do that-wait...oh man, I’m not in character at all! I need to get back to watching that show.

*I end up watching a few episodes of sofia the first, trying to figure out who cedric is again since I haven’t watched the show a ton since getting older*

Me after watching for about an hour: omg...he’s so cute!! (proceeding to squeal, squeak, and laugh like an idiot)

*friend walks in room*

Friend: what the hell is wrong with you?