Basic Trope: A character takes up residence in a house that's not theirs.
- Straight: While hiking in the mountains, Alice and Bob come across a cabin that seems to have been abandoned. They decide to take up residence there.
- Exaggerated: Alice and Bob have several "vacation homes" that don't legally belong to them.
- Downplayed:
- The Thing That Would Not Leave
- Alice and Bob only break into the unoccupied wilderness cabin after being stranded and injured after a plane crash. It is specifically noted as legally qualifying as necessity and reimbursing the owner for actual damages.
- Justified:
- Alice and Bob are new to the area and possibly the country too, don't have enough money to rent or buy accommodations, and are desperate not to sleep on the streets if they can avoid it.
- It's after the apocalypse, and Alice and Bob find a house that gives them good shelter and isn't currently occupied by its erstwhile owners who are likely dead already.
- Inverted: Alice and Bob buy or build a cabin in the mountains.
- Subverted:
- Although the cabin doesn't belong to them, they have rented it out for a vacation.
- Alice and Bob rent the cabin as their home.
- Alice and Bob take shelter in a cave.
- Double Subverted:
- They stay long after the vacation is over, since the owner doesn't live in the same area and doesn't have a property manager.
- After a while, they stop paying rent and get evicted. But they stay.
- The cave already belongs to someone else.
- Parodied: Hal, the homeowner, comes back to see Alice and Bob casually watching TV in his living room. He shrugs and joins them on The Couch.
- Zig-Zagged:
- The question of who owns the house changes Depending on the Writer.
- Alice and Bob get to stay at one house for a few days until Hal comes back and evicts them. Then they try to squat in Helen's house, but she won't let them stay there. Then they move in with Hannah and help her at home in exchange for room and board, but then Bob or Alice does something stupid that causes Hannah to kick them out. Then they try to squat in Harry's yard, but he won't let them stay there. Then, they find a place that is truly abandoned and are relatively undisturbed ... until The Government expropriates it to build something else.
- Averted: Alice and Bob have their own place.
- Enforced: Homeless Hero, The Thing That Would Not Leave
- Lampshaded:Bob: Let's stay here.Alice: Maybe we shouldn't.Bob: It looks safe and it seems to have all the supplies we need.Alice: But the real owner could be back at any minute.
- Invoked: Alice and Bob are down on their luck, and badly in need of shelter. They take the first one they find.
- Exploited: Alice and Bob take advantage of the applicable "squatters' rights" statutes, which allow anybody who stays at an abandoned dwelling for 180 consecutive days and causes quantifiable environmental and structural improvements to the property in that time to claim the deed to it.
- Defied: Alice and Bob check into a motel and look for apartments.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
Go House Squatting at the main page.
