>> You seem nice, so I am happy to assume good intentions on your part
I was not a nice person at this point, and my intentions were to have somewhere to sleep out of the rain.
I did at one point live in actual squat where people had broken in, the breaking in part happened before I got there, but I lived there for I guess what was the greatest summer ever. That was in a different city. I got out before the eviction happened, but what happened was that the landlord eventually figured out there were 7 hardcore kids squatting in this basement apartment and he came over and told them they had 24 hours to get out before he called the cops.
In that location, the cops would have come, and the cops would have kicked the kids out that day, like literally kicked them out. Kicked their asses.
In the other situation I describe, it was in a different city. Crime central. The cops weren't coming. Not to kick me out of a squat, not to kick me out of an apartment that somebody maybe had rented way back when. Not for anything. I could have set up a meth lab. Cops weren't coming.
My meaning is, if you're a landlord, you're signing up to deal with this shit, know what you're getting in to. In some places you just call the cops. In some places, $1,000 to get rid of a non-tenant like squatter me would be getting off super cheap. It would be a business decision.
I agree with everything you are said. I think where people in this thread get talking past eachother about practical decisions versus ethical and just behavior.
This was introduced with the comparison to extortion. I dont think knowing the risks of extortion, makes the extortion just or moral.
In the context of general usage, calling something a "business decision" is an intentional severing of choice from questions of right, wrong, justice, and emotion.
At the end of the day, I guess I'm just objecting to the idea that the landlord won because the squatting only cost them $1000. I did some petty B&E vandalism when I was young and dumb, and wouldn't consider it a win-win for owners when we didn't destroy move property. Im assume you'd agree it isnt a win for the landlord if the counter-factual was no squatter, so I dont really have much to debate.
At any rate, thanks for sharing your personal stories.
There's won (outright) and "won (given the situation)" - nobody would say that being hit by a car is "winning" but someone who was hit by a car, and survived when expected not to; they probably count the survival as winning.
No landlord wants to pay a tenant or squatter or whatnot to leave, but often it's the quickest and cheapest way to the goal; though if it becomes too common it ends up as a downside overall.
Some quite old (think 80-90s) landlording books I've read even talk about hiring a moving crew and a truck, finding a new apartment and paying the first and last month's rent for the tenant to get them out. Not out of goodness of their heart (though it may have seemed like that) but because those costs were less than lost revenue + cost of eviction + (potential) loss of a sale.
I was not a nice person at this point, and my intentions were to have somewhere to sleep out of the rain.
I did at one point live in actual squat where people had broken in, the breaking in part happened before I got there, but I lived there for I guess what was the greatest summer ever. That was in a different city. I got out before the eviction happened, but what happened was that the landlord eventually figured out there were 7 hardcore kids squatting in this basement apartment and he came over and told them they had 24 hours to get out before he called the cops.
In that location, the cops would have come, and the cops would have kicked the kids out that day, like literally kicked them out. Kicked their asses.
In the other situation I describe, it was in a different city. Crime central. The cops weren't coming. Not to kick me out of a squat, not to kick me out of an apartment that somebody maybe had rented way back when. Not for anything. I could have set up a meth lab. Cops weren't coming.
My meaning is, if you're a landlord, you're signing up to deal with this shit, know what you're getting in to. In some places you just call the cops. In some places, $1,000 to get rid of a non-tenant like squatter me would be getting off super cheap. It would be a business decision.