Urban Survival - The Uglier Side of City Living, Wednesday, Period 2

[myownface]

"So, squatting," Sparkle said, feeling a little bit like he'd been hit by a bus and mostly just looking like he'd spent a few days drinking under one, "or homesteading - and I learned last night that you have to use both terms in your Google searches if you don't want to learn about cows or how to lift heavy boxes - is, by the most loose definition

Comments

Discuss

[myownface]

Read the handout if you're feelin' it, or just offer up suggestions to make your homesteading experience as safe and pleasant as long-term trespassing where you're likely not wanted possibly can be.

Re: Discuss

[intotheout]

Tip noticed that all the squatters in the handouts were clean, reputably groomed, and white.

"This thing almost sounds like it's for, like, recreational squatting or something," she noted. "Bet it's real easy to concentrate on learning local property laws when you're freezing and hungry."

Re: Discuss

[myownface]

Yeah, Sparkle hadn't missed that part either, but he'd been too tired/drunk/something to go digging much farther than the first hit that actually mentioned things like 'don't get shot.'

"I can look for something better for next week," Sparkle offered, a little flatly. "Recreational squatting is also a thing, believe it or not, and yeah, thinking too hard on why people would want to do it for kicks makes my head hurt. But since we all have somewhere to live right now, learning the local property laws for wherever you're planning on going back to after grad isn't a luxury you can't currently afford, either."

Re: Discuss

[intotheout]

"White people," Tip grumbled under her breath. Being clean, reputably groomed, and white tended to make a big difference in how laws were enforced, too. "The library does seem to have, like, every law book known to man," she allowed. "So it wouldn't be too hard to look them up here."

Re: Discuss

[myownface]

Sparkle shrugged his shoulders a little, and then nodded. He was somewhere between wrung out and cranky today, and was trying not to let it bleed into teaching, as best as he was able.

"I mean, that's why I'm teaching this," he pointed out. "So you can plan for this stuff in case it does happen. Or happens again or you know someone it could happen to or... like... whatever. And the library's free. Most libraries are free, and plenty even have internet access these days. Libraries are awesome for that."

So long as you were allowed into them, anyway.

Re: Discuss

[intotheout]

"That's why I signed up to work in this one," Tip agreed. "The ones back home used to have a lot of resources specifically for homeless people, actually. They probably still would, but the Invasion changed a lot of how homelessness gets seen and handled, so . . . I think it's not needed as much."

Re: Discuss

[myownface]

"Small favours, huh?" Sparkle offered Tip a small smile that was about as flat as he felt today, and then shrugged. "It's gonna be different for everywhere, and we have students from places that aren't even Earth, but if anywhere has the information they're gonna need to prepare themselves, it's probably Fandom's library."

Because really, that place had everything.

Re: Discuss

[kenselvren]

"If you can set traps around your place, that would be helpful," Jalian said. "Something to warn people off, or to stop them from getting to you."

She shrugged. "That's helpful wherever you live, usually."

Her roommate was probably glad she didn't think she needed them here.

Re: Discuss

[intotheout]

"In some places it might just get you sued," Tip pointed out. "There's been cases in the US of burglars suing homeowners because they tripped and fell on their sidewalk while trying to carry away their TV. Putting the traps there on purpose probably just means you're more likely to lose."

Re: Discuss

[kenselvren]

Jalian gave her a cool look. "Not putting traps gets you caught or dead. If they don't want you there, having them or not will make no difference to them. Only to you."

Re: Discuss

[intotheout]

"Until someone gets past your traps, which will eventually happen, I don't care how good at putting them out you are, and you get arrested anyway, and instead of just facing trespassing charges, you're facing, like, criminal negligence or assault and battery too."

Re: Discuss

[kenselvren]

"In your world. If they are good enough. And if I can't kill them first," Jalian said. "They would still have to catch me, and I would have warning."

Re: Discuss

[intotheout]

"That's why I said 'in some places,'" Tip pointed out. "And I don't care how good you are, eventually you're going to run into someone better."

Re: Discuss

[kenselvren]

"If there is a person quiet enough to get past all my traps without alerting me, and strong enough and fast enough to catch me, I would have other problems," Jalian said, sounding bored. "I don't want to see Ralesh again."

Re: Discuss

[intotheout]

Tip rolled her eyes. "Right, so why both with other ideas or contingency plans."

Re: Discuss

[kenselvren]

"I never said that," Jalian said scornfully. "You didn't ask. You don't only have traps - what good is that? You also have weapons, escape routes, and ways of warning others. You have knowledge of your likely enemies, and of their enemies, and of your terrain. That is how a woman and a tribe survive."