KICK ASS MOVES

With the prospect of a squatting ban just around the corner the Advisory Service for Squatters (ASS) have released their annual report in the style of subvertised News of the World (available at http://ompldr.org/vYTU5Zg/).

With at least 20,000 squatters in the UK, you’d think it’d be easy to find volunteers to run the ASS’s invaluable service – alas you’d be wrong. They looking for more people to help out so if you’re a squatter, ex-squatter or sympathiser just drop in to their office at 84b Whitechapel High St, East London Mon-Fri, 2-6pm and find out how to help.

If you do end up volunteering there try not to go the way of Kath Hibbert. The ex-journo decided to live free for a year so she could write a book about it – basically hundreds of pages of ‘Guardian reader gets excited by finding sandwich in skip’ anecdotes.

During her time slumming it with the rest of us, she also helped out at ASS.  Ufortunately she has used this experience for evil and has now setup her own anti-squat company – charging people slightly cheaper ‘rent’ in order to act as live-in security for empty properties.

These companies have been on the rise recently and should be avoided at all costs (checkout the Dutch documentary Carefree Vacant Property - http://vimeo.com/9649993 for more info).

* For all you need to know about squatting or how to help out see www.squatter.org.uk/