The ghostly 'worries'

Squatting is the bogeyman the right wing uses to justify and facilitate evictions, turning them into a tool for speculation. A sharp and effective tool. Do you realize (or calculate, or fantasize) that you could get three or four times that amount for that apartment you're currently renting? Is the only obstacle the current tenants, who religiously pay their rent and fulfill all their obligations, but whom you want to evict and don't know how? No problem: you should be able to evict these unwelcome tenants without having to give any further explanations, because you are—magic words—the owner (the right wing always prefers "small landlord," which sounds nicer, even if the "small landlord" owns seven or eight apartments). The legislation being promoted by the PP and Vox parties in the regions they govern, such as Valencia and the Balearic Islands, follows this trend: facilitating and justifying evictions, and making them a decision that depends exclusively on the intentions of the property owner, whether small, medium, or large. Juntos por el Cambio is perfectly aligned with the PP and Vox on this issue, and even adds a touch of patriotic rhetoric.

It's worth remembering that, contrary to what's being spread through social media rumors and gossip, the supposed legal loophole regarding squatting is practically nonexistent: according to a ruling by the Barcelona Provincial Court last March, the owner can disconnect the electricity, water, and gas to an occupied building if they force the squatters to do so. But what's common isn't squatting, but rather trespassing, a crime clearly defined and prosecuted by the police and courts. Cases where someone suddenly finds their house, or second home, occupied by strangers whom neither the police nor anyone else can remove are extremely rare and highly dubious. It's another false alarm, partly ideological and partly deliberately orchestrated to serve specific interests: very similar, in terms of consistency, to false rape accusations made by malicious women, or to the stories of Catalan—or Mallorcan—children who don't speak Spanish because they've been indoctrinated in the independent language. Employment is a specter that haunts dinner table conversations and the speeches of bad politicians, reinforcing the idea of ​​social inequality as an inevitable fate.

The employment fallacy has culminated with the invention of the worryAn ugly word that provokes anger just by saying it, and which seeks to extend suspicion of employing those unwelcome tenants we mentioned at the beginning.worries It's so unrealistic that it's conceptually impossible: a person can be a tenant or a squatter, but never both at the same time. Neoliberals (the poor-leaning elite) should try harder to invent more elaborate lies. And less ugly words, if possible.