Introduction to squat health and safety

This guide was written for you if you are looking for safe housing in foreclosure-land. Maybe you are homeless or about to be. Maybe you want to escape the world of landlords, mortgage companies, parents, bosses and other people telling you what to do. Maybe you want to make a political message and draw attention to the presence of more vacant homes than homeless people.

Whatever you want to do, this booklet should offer you some tips and tricks you can use to make your housing more safe. Once you and your crew stake out your hideout from the monsters out there, the monsters inside often rear their heads. We don't know how to be free. So squats often degenerate into dangerous places due to neglect of the structure, responsibilities, and each other; and due to abuse of newfound freedom.

The quickest way to invite the monster out there into your life is through indulging the monster inside. Are weapons getting pulled in your squat for drunken fights? Are windows getting smashed out? Are people starting to shoot dope who never did it before? Are women leaving the squat suddenly without telling anyone what happened? Is indoor chainsmoking, uncleaned up dust, and unremediated mold making the squat a health risk? Is the kitchen filled with moldy and rotten food and rats, or with no food at all? Is someone actively making it an unsafe space and no-one is able to confront or stop his behavior?

Police raids and scabies outbreaks ride the faultlines of injustice, miscommunication, abuse, and neglect into our lives. There are legal and medical defenses, but the professions of law and medicine profit off the faultlines that deliver their clients. They are unable to offer permanent solutions, just crutches and stalling tactics. This guide offers a bunch of these quick fixes, because when you need them, they are golden. But everything, everything actually depends on how you relate to yourself, each other, and your neighbors.

Not legal or medical advice

This booklet has a lot of information about toilets, scabies, violence, and eviction. The information is drawn from the personal experience of the authors and from sources the authors trust. None of us are lawyers or doctors, and anything in here is subject to differing opinions and changes. Don't give us that authority, and let us know if you find anything that is wrong: email [address redacted because no longer in use].