this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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We must defend the empty properties!
Also, we must solve the housing crisis by building more houses!
It's gonna be really funny when dude gets charged with menacing and extortion.
He's gonna meet a former mall ninja/disciple of the sword fedora wearing meth head and he gonna die.
This might also count under assault, depending on state laws. Someone turns up at my door with a fucking sword, a gun, and a belt full of chemical weapons, I'm definitely going to feel like he's there to harm me, whether or not he says he is.
TBF, the article never really describes exactly what the man does with all his equipment. We don't even know if he'll be the aggressor.
Squatters don't usually go for genuinely abandoned properties, but rather ones that are empty in the short term for normal reasons (vacations, sales, grandma got moved to a home). If they went into abandoned properties then there might be repairs that need to be done, some of the utilities might not be able to be activated immediately because of connection issues, it might not be safe, and certainly the owner might not notice and then come to ask them to leave and then they would never be able to ask the owner for money to make them leave.
Do you have knowledge of these truly abandoned properties? I could use some adverse possession...
You could search Zillow for off-market properties. Look for stuff that's way below market for the area. Cross reference state property tax records. Title records. Maybe it's boarded up and in obvious disrepair. Particular look for one that's owned for a long time by an LLC. The owner there has enough business accumen to fix it up, but believes that he'll profit more by waiting around until market conditions change. Look for the LLC owner, for one who doesn't live nearby. Now you have someone whose distance and dereliction of social duty shows through in the condition of the property. He's harming the neighborhood, keeping housing empty and off-market, and not even paying attention. That's the one.
This is not legal advice, just a mental exercise.