Baby boomer homeowners are furious after a prominent tenants’ rights campaigner stumbled upon an empty house in Melbourne and boasted that anyone could walk into it if they wanted to.
Jordan van den Berg, known online as Purplepingers, encourages squatters by maintaining a list of abandoned houses that he tells people to occupy if they are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.
On Monday he posted a picture on social media of himself standing in front of an apparently abandoned house in Prahran, 5km south-east of Melbourne’s CBD..
The front door had been clumsily secured with wire hangers and padlocks, which Mr van denberg said was an attempt to “keep people out”.
The median home price in Prahran is $1,745,500, according to realestate.com.au.
“Rich people really need to lock up their abandoned houses better, especially those still connected to electricity and water,” she wrote in the caption.
Mr van den Berg told the Daily Mail Australia the house was “clearly vacant” and neighbours had told him it had not been occupied for at least six years.
Her post was the latest in a series highlighting how many homes are currently empty or abandoned as many Australians struggle to secure stable housing.
Renting campaigner Jordan van den Berg (pictured) has angered baby-boomer homeowners after posing in front of an empty house locked up with warped hangers and padlocks.
While few would disagree with Mr van den Berg’s push for fairer terms for the 31 per cent of Australians who rent, his defence of squatting has irritated some landlords who argue it is their right to leave their homes empty if they wish.
The backlash against Mr van den Berg erupted in April when he published the addresses of empty houses and pointed out that squatting is not “necessarily illegal”.
In Australia, you can usually squat on a property if it looks abandoned and the doors are unlocked. If the house is locked, you risk being charged with trespassing, and if you stay after the landlord has asked you to leave, that’s trespassing..
The owners said van den Berg “should be arrested” for his activism, even though it is not illegal to publish a list of empty houses, and one even vowed to “trash” him.
One angry comment on X, formerly Twitter, read: “I’d love for you to come into my house. It wouldn’t end well for you, comrade.”
Mr van den Berg told Daily Mail Australia he did not enter Prahran’s home, only posing for a photo outside it, and said he was used to receiving death threats..
In April, Mr. van den Berg sparked a national conversation about homelessness when he posted a video explaining that squatting was generally legal if the home was unlocked.
In April, he sparked a national conversation about homelessness when he posted a video explaining that squatting was usually legal if the home was unlocked.
“Fun fact: In Australia, squatting is not necessarily illegal, which is the best way to legalize it, especially if the front door doesn’t have a lock,” he said.
-Yes, you have a free house here if you want it.
A squatter can become the legal owner of a home if he remains there long enough.
Also known as adverse possession, the long-standing legal tradition allows a person to take control of an abandoned property if they live or hold it for 15 years in Victoria or 12 years in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia.
Landlords can still evict anyone found on their property before that benchmark is reached.
Mr van den Berg, who is a lawyer, said he had noticed absentee landlords were starting to use ineffective locks to protect themselves from potential squatters, rather than properly securing their homes, after he began highlighting the problem.
“I think it’s because they know that people now know it’s vacant,” he said.
Mr van den Berg noticed that absentee landlords were beginning to use ineffective locks to protect themselves from squatters, rather than properly securing their homes, after he began highlighting the problem.
Mr van den Berg acknowledged that his videos were polarising, but said his critics were mainly people who would prefer to see homeless people left homeless.
“There are people who can see the idea that we shouldn’t have homeless people as long as we have homes without people, that’s pretty simple,” he said.
“But there are also people who really don’t like the idea of housing homeless people at the end of the day.”
Mr van den Berg said the fact that landlords deliberately left their properties empty was “simply greed”.
“Owners are abandoning properties to let them increase in value and then sell them later while we have a housing crisis – it’s ridiculous,” he said.
‘This particular house – and many others like it – have no development application, they are not for sale, they are rotting away.’
Mr van den Berg said that while the average Australian was opposed to squatting as a solution to the rental crisis, the problem was nonetheless severely affecting the fabric of Australian society.
Mr van den Berg admitted that average Australians were opposed to squatting as a solution to the housing crisis..
However, he said the housing shortage was seriously affecting the fabric of Australian society, with young people increasingly “dissatisfied” with their inability to own a home or rent one at a reasonable price.
Mr van den Berg said this discontent had evolved into “contempt” and a feeling that the Australian way of life was no longer something worth defending.
“It’s clearly a mass of exploited people… I think a lot of people want something done about it, and if nothing happens, it’s not going to be right,” he said.
He added that previous governments had helped provide affordable housing to older generations to “stop people feeling this disdain… by giving them something to stand up for”, but this is no longer happening.
