Henry and M, an interview
What is squatting?
Squatting is when you occupy empty or unused commercial buildings. In England, legally, it has to be a commercial property. The place that I’m living in now used to be a centre that provided support for people who had come out of the social care system. The building was sold in trust, which means the landlord bought it from the Council for cheap on the promise that he was going to rebuild it as something for the community. But this landlord in particular has been known… there’s other situations where he buys properties cheap on trust, and then lets them get run down, or lets people squat them so they get even more run down, to the point where he can go to the council and be like, ‘Well, I can’t rebuild this for the community so my only option is to knock it down and redevelop it for my own interest.’
There’s only three or four properties in London that have been such long standing squats. In August it will be five years. It’s because of this, the dodginess of this guy, that we’ve managed to keep it going for so long.
Most of the people I know who squat, it’s three to six months and then you get moved on.
So how long have you been there?
I’ve been there just over a year now. We were squatting a place in Clapton and we got evicted illegally. The owners just hired some heavies to come round and kick us out. So we rang our friends in Archway to come help us and they were like, ‘You guys should just come live here. We’ve got some extra rooms.’ And so we moved in.
Relationships with authorities
Because we’ve been going on this long, it’s now at the point where if we want to start working towards getting a longer term, more secure position in the place, we can. If you start paying business rates, (taxes raised on non-domestic properties), it means then you have a better legal standing, but it can also be risky because you don’t know how the Council’s going to respond.
But the Council knows that you’re there.
Yes, they collect our bins and stuff. Our relationship with the Council has changed over the years. We’ve had noise abatement orders on the place when people were putting on too many parties but currently we’re on pretty good terms with the Council.
Decision making and communityare about relationships
Different crews have different relationships. With this one, because it’s been such a longstanding place, it’s obviously not the original crew that opened the space. It can feel more disjointed as a community because people come and go and people have moved in their friends and stuff and it’s not been like a core group. Whereas the crews that move more regularly together do in some ways have more of a stronger community within them because they are having to like constantly plan and solve problems.
So what about decision making
It’s really hard. There’s a lot of strong personalities, so we do try and have regular house meetings and make sure that at least the majority of the house is present before any big decisions are made. But sometimes it’s easier for people just to make a decision.If something’s been discussed over and over and an agreement has not been [reached] people just take action. Like we have a really bad mice problem. And there’s been a lot of debate about poison versus humane traps or getting cats. But we have dogs as well. In the end someone just. Got a cat. So now the animal situation in the house is incredibly complex because there’s four dogs, none of whom get on with each other, so they all have to be kept separate. And then the cats also are separate from the dogs. So each floor is segregated to one animal’s district.
What are the advantages of squatting?
There’s the obvious one. Which is you’re not paying rent. But people often assume that because you’re not paying rent, life is easy. People don’t realise that a lot of maintenance goes with squatting and it’s really time consuming. It is why, for lots of people, squatting doesn’t mean they can actually be working full time. There’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes.
We have a leak in the roof which has led to a really bad mould problem in our ceiling. So that’s my current project: removing the rot and mould and resealing the roof.
Also, because this style of living does attract people who maybe have problems with mental health or drug abuse or whatever, you have to be prepared to live with constant chaos and drama, which can be amazingly fun. But then some days you’re like, ‘Oh, my God, I cannot be bothered with you people anymore.’ That’s definitely a factor, but it also means you meet some amazing people. So pros and cons are close in that regard.
Do you feel you have a caring role?
Everyone looks after each other, that’s for sure, in a way that you don’t necessarily have in rented spaces, even when it is a disjointed community, even when you don’t really know the other people that well.
What led you to this way of life?
I’ve always been involved in squat parties and putting on events in squatted spaces. So that, I guess, is what introduced me to the community as a whole.
Although often times when we do squat a building, after the event, we’ll find a crew that’s looking for a new place to live, and then they can take over the space, instead of just using it and then discarding it. We just spread the word that there’s an available space.
I do think squatting is a reaction to the housing crisis. Different people have different relationships with it. Some people don’t want to pay rent while other people are doing it more with an ideological, political sense in terms of the housing crisis, communal living and just like alternative ways of existing. The mentality behind why people are doing it changes from crew to crew.
So how would you describe your own relationship with squatting?Definitely it’s an ideological choice for me because, even if I didn’t live in London, I would still search for similar communities or squatted spaces to live in. But, on a simply practical matter, I know I couldn’t afford to maintain the van in London and be renting a space as well. The whole way of life in London is just becoming harder and harder.
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