It’s a tough job, demolishing houses were people could actually still live in…
It’s been an exciting day in the West… Around midday the neighbourhood cop came by the squatted houses with a colleague and a few guys representing Ymere. They didn’t exactly like the fact that the houses had gotten squatted again, but admitted that Van Boetzelaerstraat 2 II and 20 I had been empty for over a year. They then wanted to go in and check that nobody was using the other floors, and got upset when realizing that the squatters had barricaded the door to the staircase and refused to open it.
With the help of a young worker (who damn nearly broke his leg trying to kick open the door that was closed with a bouwstempel) the cops and the Ymere posse finally got in through the roof, having given up with the door altogether. They checked the second and the third floor and saw that they were not in use by the squatters. Then the workers demolished the toilets and the kitchens and removed all the windows, piling them inside and then smashing them for the fun of it. The squatters stayed in the 1st floor all this time.
After a few hours both the cops and the Ymere guys left, promising to come back the next day. So we expect them to come and try to huff & puff their way inside house number 2 tomorrow. But we are still in control of the houses and we are not leaving. No eviction for emptiness!
The neighbourhood cop responsible for the arrest, and his big hat
Removing the windows
If you can’t remove it, break it
You mess with Ymere, and you’re life will never be boring again…
So, as expected, the evil forces came back today, this time with more manpower. Several cops and Ymere workers kept and eye on things while their colleagues broke into Van Boetzelaerstraat 2, and like yesterday, entered the 429 floors. There they took out all the windows and demolished the kitchens and bathrooms. They also tried to enter the squatted floor, but changed their minds and in the end decided to remove the front door of the house instead.
After destroying everything there was in number 2, the workers bizarrely proceeded to demolish all the apartments in the block. Also water and electricity were cut.
There was also one arrest. When the workers had already moved on to the other houses, one of the squatters wanted to enter the still squatted floor in house number 2. The neighbourhood refused to let him in to the building, and then suddenly ran after him and arrested him. The cops were also seen following another person and then trying to catch him, running around the neighbourhood after him, but failed to catch him, the lazy pigs that they are.
During the last days Ymere has really shown what they are all about. One of the guys representing Ymere told us that they have paid a lot of money to get the building empty, and that they can’t now risk suddenly having the whole block full of people like us. So instead they pay a lot more money trying to keep these apartments from getting squatted, even though they are still not really sure when the demolition is going to start. Naturally they were whining that they wanted to start with the preparations this week. (Yeah, right…) So apparently we messed up their plans. We’d like to say that we are really sorry, but we’re not. Not one bit.
We are not leaving Van Boetzelaerstraat to Ymere. These bastards just want to make more dough and speed up the process of gentrification in the neighbourhood and the whole city. They can go screw themselves! Staatsliedenbuurt is ours, KRAKEN GAAT DOOR!