Ever since I moved from Twitter to Mastodon this week, I feel like I’ve been camping. On the friendly alternative to Twitter, not in the hands of a megalomaniac billionaire, you need to have some self-reliance, patience and adaptability. Does that tent pole go in here? Just look it up in the manual that is spread over the entire site by a gust of wind. By the way, I’ve heard that it’s best to use rock pegs. rock pegs? I just heard regular herrings. What is this lip for? Well, hey, he’s standing. Nice place. Goodbye neighbor! Neighbour? I don’t think he hears me. Ah fuck, a rock under the inner tent. Move up a bit? Funny, I now see that this piece of land is again managed by someone else, other rules also apply. Hey, is it leaking now? Anyway, tonight all together around the campfire? Hello? Tomorrow then? Nice guys, really feels like coming home. Does anyone hear me?
Luckily I still kept my real house. I’m up for adventure but not naive about the potentially short lifespan of a tent. And I’m also just a person who likes a spread bed, a bit of urban cosiness. But I didn’t like the new landlord. No sooner had the ink on his contract of sale dried than he was already shouting conspiracy theories through my letterbox, which he smugly referred to as “freedom of speech.” Since he took over, more and more questionable characters called him a hero as they carved swastikas into the freshly painted woodwork. Really, it’s nice to have a kitchen with a dishwasher and an asparagus pan, but I didn’t enjoy eating there with friends anymore.
And now that I regularly sleep in a tent anyway – the neighbor has already greeted me and it’s getting nice and busy – how ethical are landlords anyway? Some look neat, but they also snoop through residents’ belongings and share their weak spots with third parties for a fee. It’s just in your contract, they say when someone objects, you don’t have to live here. They tell residents that they have a withered head, put groups of noisy market vendors under their open windows and fill the surrounding houses with chatty airbnb’ers who always have a terrible story to tell, whether or not made up. And whoever wants to get some fresh air will find the landlord again and again strolling at the front door. Here, another very important thing that you really should take a look at. I also have a lot of videos that will certainly interest you. Ties to the Chinese state? I? Just take a look. Nice right?
Perhaps the entire housing market is so rotten that sleeping under the stars is a good idea anyway. Although my old neighbors clearly show that they find the behavior just a nuisance. “See you next week,” they say mockingly. ‘Do you remember that other great campsite when you were back home under a fleece blanket in no time? And what a weakness that you still come here to do the laundry.’
My fellow campers, on the other hand, are up for a revolution. Down with all the pesky slum landlords who have turned us into servile commodities. No authoritarian owner here with our weaknesses as a revenue model. There is a group of volunteers who mow the grass, others scrub the toilets and a little further on the foundation is being laid for a new kind of house. And we don’t all have to bathe every day in a big wooden tub, singing and with flower crowns on our heads. We already feel clean.