The Post Bag: Letters To Squall

Mutual Respect?

Squall 9, Jan/Feb 1995, pg. 46.

Dear Squall,

I write because my house has been squatted two times in two months. The experience has been a nasty one. What happened runs against squatters' claims to improve empty property, and my own long-standing commitment to see housing need met affordably and comprehensively. This letter should raise several disturbing issues for readers of SQUALL.

I completed purchase with a mortgage of a house in Kentish Town, London in October 1994. I arrived to find squatters in the house who I persuaded to leave in two days. Major building work on the roof, and front and back of the house was then able to start. Shortly after the first phase of the work was completed, the house was forcibly entered by different squatters (all male). After they were told the facts about the house but refused to move, I then had to use the PIO law to secure their eviction.

The experience left me feeling dirty, violated and exhausted. It left me anxious and short of sleep. It took days out of my work schedule as a self-employed trainer.

The cost to me of the squatters' occupation and removal has been at least £1,000, money I wanted to spend on refurbishment of the house. Apart from serious damage to the front door, one or more of the squatters stole an answer phone, a telephone, cleaning brushes, kitchen scissors, mugs etc. They opened my post and broke academic confidentiality with students who had sent their essays to me. They cracked a ceiling, scrawled in marker pen across a mirror and used up my large supply of tea and coffee. They used my gas and electricity and central heating system.

There are some more issues for squatters to think about:

1) The intelligence about what was genuinely empty and neglected was pretty poor. Scaffolding had only just been taken down. Domestic rubbish waited for collection. I was frequently in and out of the house.

2) A quick look at the inside of the house would have shown that this was not a genuinely empty property - very recent correspondence all to me, the supplies in the kitchen, the old but working Hoover etc.

3) The slamming of my own door in my face was unimaginably offensive when my girlfriend and I came to persuade them to leave without my having to resort to the law.

4) The theft and damage have got nothing to do with meeting housing need. This is petty criminal activity.

5) The failure to say sorry. Admitting a mistake would have been an act of just a little maturity. Some reparation or return of my goods would have been even better. Admittedly one of the squatters did say he had learnt a lot from the experience and would think twice about who he squatted with in the future.

I have some experience in the field of social housing and know full well that housing need in this country is not being met by the present Government. I am also aware that squatting is a reflection of that housing need, and am not against the squatting of genuinely unoccupied and disused properties by people who are homeless.

However, experiences like mine only strengthen the hand of Michael Howard and others who want ever tighter criminal laws and excuses not to meet housing need. In their own interest, squatters have a responsibility to see that the outrageous behaviour I suffered from is stopped in its tracks.

Yours sincerely,

Hilary Barnard

Kentish Town,

London.