Terribly concerned about the safety of our home

PalmHere is a suitable guard of private property. Two, rather, but one is only in effigy, while the other is present defending the door (or window, more accurately) of the house. A furry cat with a serious face looks directly into the camera, which is to say it looks us in the eyes, as if confirming what the sign it has attached to the windowpane says. This sign features the image of a dog, the animal we most associate with the task of surveillance, along with a dissuasive warning: "I'm on guard, you're entering a place of risk and danger." A short text that, due to its syntax and sound, gives the impression of being a direct or exact translation from English.

Be that as it may, the intention is evidently humorous, and if the sign weren't funny enough, the presence of the cat just below, staring us straight in the face, is a discovery from David Arquimbau's photography that will almost certainly force us to smile. We have no doubt that this four-legged guard must be in a bad mood (sorry for the bad joke). The old wood of the window, with its paint peeling off, just gives the whole thing an air of something old, dilapidated, and endearing.

Is this an image that contrasts with the harvest of security that has been present in our society for years, and which, therefore, has also made a place for itself among our consumer objects (or is it the other way around, and the harvest of security is present among our consumer objects and, therefore, in our society?). Objects, artifacts, mechanisms, inventions that protect us (or that we believe can protect us) from our fears. Because the truth is that people are afraid.

Fear of what? Fear of being assaulted, violated, attacked, robbed, stripped of what—little or much—we have, of the material possessions we've managed to gather through work, effort, and all this and that. This brings us to the question that is directly linked to this one: fear of whom? Well, fear of immigrants, of the undocumented, of the homeless, of those who wander here and there without a home, job, or benefit... Fear of the poor, in short, because, if someone has to break in and rob us, it must be the poor, right? The needy, the desperate. And fear of squatters, naturally. If certain public discourses have achieved anything, it has been to generate a true paranoia among the citizenry surrounding the occupation of homes, as if it were an imminent threat that was about to evict those who own them from their homes.

A legend

In reality, the percentage of occupied homes is no more than 0.05%. The occupation figures are practically insignificant, because we must also keep in mind that an occupation can only occur in a property without services activated, that is, without electricity or water. If the services in a home are activated, entering and remaining without permission is no longer considered occupation, but rather trespassing, and it is a crime against which both the police and the courts intervene to evict and punish the perpetrator. The legend that someone can enter someone else's home while they are away (at work, for example, or traveling) and establish a stronghold without the security forces or the courts being able to do anything is just that: a legend. There are many more chances of being evicted from your home by an investment fund than by a group of squatters.

However, people like legends: especially, as we've already said, those that make the poor look bad. Ultimately, there's such a clear gap between the reality of employment and the social fear it generates. And above all, with the business it generates: insurance and anti-employment alarms are sold at a premium, especially for the insurance companies and those who install these alarms. Fear of squatters not only brings in money, but also votes, which tend to go to the right and the far right, and which are ultimately also exchanged for money. It's money, and votes, from fear, which people end up giving away for nothing, because the threat they're protecting themselves from simply doesn't affect them. If you own private property and are afraid of unwanted visitors, the best advice is to avoid insurance, alarms, or gun permits. Instead, look for a sign and a security guard like the ones in the photo and try to relax a bit, it's very hot.