Squtters are trespassers.

It's fair of them to benefit from the cracks in the housing/finance/broken-money industrial complex... and it's fair of landowners to try every (reasonable?) means necessary to get their properties back.

It's just "another battle in California's low-burning turf war between the squatters who invade homes and the enforcers hired to reclaim them."

Our dude Christian Britschgi at Reason went on a serious bender with a California dude who specializes in expelling squatters from homes. Tons about the background (legal, how it got to where it is etc) and plenty of stake-out stories, like it's a freakin Miami Vice episode... Britschgi gives us a first-person overview/ride-along as the Katana-wielding guy empties out an home.

You Truly Own Only What You Physically PossessYou Truly Own Only What You Physically Possess

Wonderful long-read article, prime journalism. Journalism is dead etc, but sometimes it twitches in its dead thralls and the old-world writing produces something magnificent. I'm here for it.

The Bitcoin undertones in that beautiful one-line sentence of "a more anarchic principle" guides Britschgi through the piece

Across the Golden State, uninvited occupants have taken over countless residential properties and then refused to vacate. Homes undergoing renovations, vacant rental units, and even whole apartment buildings have fallen prey to squatters. Once they move in squatters are very difficult to dislodge. The legal process to remove them is expensive and can take months or years.

People have learned that if they invade a property, they can physically occupy it for months or, in extreme cases, even for years, all while the legal owner spins his or her wheels in costly court proceedings. Meanwhile, the police, who hold a monopoly on the lawful use of force, cite the same orderly process as an excuse to wash their hands of the squatter problem and reduce the services they provide to property owners.

In their desperation, owners are increasingly turning to a rising crop of private rights enforcers to solve the problem. That includes Jacobs and his company, ASAP Squatter Removal.

The standard ASAP Squatter Removal job involves surveilling a property, reclaiming it through a "breach-and-clear" operation when the squatter leaves for the day, and then boarding up the unit and holding it down for as long as necessary.

also, fuck the poooolice:

"When new market entrants arrive to provide their own rough form of property-rights enforcement, police and prosecutors respond, as legal monopolies typically do, by seeking to crush the competition.""When new market entrants arrive to provide their own rough form of property-rights enforcement, police and prosecutors respond, as legal monopolies typically do, by seeking to crush the competition."

And why the sword? Well, dude got in some legal trouble and wasn't allowed to wield guns anymore... the court order said nothing about swords, though! Also:

The risk of serious criminal charges is one reason Jacobs has transitioned to using a sword on jobs. "There's really no gun defense. It's really just gun offense," he says. "But with swords, there is [defense]. I can make a cut towards somebody's hand and disable their hand. And that's not attempted manslaughter."

BEAUTIFUL FINISH:

In a more anarchic world, Jacobs might be more successful. In a world where the state was a more effective guarantor of property rights, there might be no demand for eviction alternative services to begin with. But in this world, as long as California's eviction system remains ineffective and unreformed, some entrepreneur with a sword, literal or figurative, will always step forward to meet the need.

The hero we shouldn't need, but unfortunately do!