The main WhatsApp group of landlords and renters in Valencia is fuming these days. Especially after the demonstrations calling for the right to decent housing held throughout the country. Within the Hosts and Groups group, 313 members, the majority multi-owners of homes and ground floors intended for vacation or short-stay rentals, which are referred to as VUT—housing for temporary use. The chat is designed to solve common problems of the group and help when finding handymen, lawyers, moving companies, surveyors, cleaning staff or providing a housing solution for people who come to Valencia to spend months or weeks. Now, in the group, “a lot of blood was drawn from Ribó and his regulation of tourist apartments, and the call not to vote for him was constant,” confesses one of its members who prefers to remain anonymous and adds: “ “The verbal violence of now has no name.”
The clearest example is the comments following the massive demonstration on October 19, which toured a large part of the city, called under the slogan “València s’ofega” and which brought together around 50,000 people according to the organizers. The thing went from the initial “Everything is a lie” or “They are going against us” to a member of the group, which offers a hundred rooms for rent in the Cabanyal-Canyameral area, sharing two images of a burning container — both retouched with artificial intelligence to simulate a fire—and then accuse the protesters of being violent. The photos are disseminated with the text “There goes the image of the “night of broken glass”. “They play the role that the Nazis played and we play the role that the Jews played.” This leads to a series of insults to the protesters such as “riff” or “violent.” And later in “perroflautas” or “gandules” in reference to the activists camped in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento. In fact, the conclusion reached by another landlord is that “they are the same ones from 15M, they return to the street because their subsidies have already run out. What are they going to live on?” To which they sarcastically add “they are his children.”
If we go back to the summer, we see that the atmosphere of the chat was already quite tense, especially when events such as: “A neighbor came to us to explain to us that a boy passed by screaming tourist apartments last night and threw an object at the glass…”, and a photo of a damaged glass is attached. The television news about the possible regulation of the sector was dispatched with: “They are manipulated clowns, they don’t say anything about those who sell drugs or junkies?? Maybe the shitty closed and lousy establishments full of rats and cockroaches that are everywhere are better than nice apartments that bring tourists and give commerce and life to the area…” All this, as the member of the chat explains to us, with the connivance of the moderator, “which encourages ultra-liberal approaches and draws attention to those who share news or content that do not follow this line.”
Squatters are often the target of insults in the chat, specifically every time a case arises in the press. The following statement serves as an example: “We are surrounded by thieves and we let them steal from us without any consequences. It’s about time there were consequences. I have not known any war that is won by protesting, they are won by a fair shot” and people are invited to squat in public buildings as a protest.
In the days before and after the demonstration in Madrid on October 13, information began to be shared in the group about the protests and Valeria Racu’s proposal not to carry out a rent strike. With comments such as: “today on TV1 tomorrow giving formulas to eliminate us”, “Well if they stop paying and the small owners stop renting for fear of inkiokupen, we’ll see who houses them…” or “they can think about squatting directly.” “That would be an Anarchy that I do not foresee today.” And the legal security for landlords in Spain is compared with countries like “Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea (…) Chaves said it: if you have to expropriate, you expropriate.” In fact, that is a general request from the group, for more legal security and a tough hand against defaulters and squatters “who have an open bar.”
On October 14, with the Valencia demonstration in progress, an owner shared some graffiti contrary to the VUT that was done on some ground floors of his property in the Amistad neighborhood. “Without even having opened. This shit is what our beloved politicians cause. “Nonsense,” he added to his complaint. The rest of the chat encouraged him to report the vandalism to the police and gave him ideas on the best way to clean up the graffiti. As a reminder, the chat also stressed that video cameras cannot be placed facing the street, “the police do not allow it” and they were invited to place them facing the entrance door in order to catch the offenders.
The group continued discussing trusted carpenters, looking for a professional to unclog the pipes in a chalet or asking about companies that offer boat trips to go fishing with children. Until the first demonstration arrived, the human chain in the Patraix neighborhood against the basement of a building converted into 24 VUT, whose license was granted hours before the mayor of Valencia, María José Catalá, announced the moratorium. To the call for the rally, the administrator’s response is: “Tempering is heating up even more.” While the theory about the call, defended by a user who offers eleven tourist apartments on his website, is: “Against ground floors that have been closed for years, it is better to leave them closed for squatters, rats or cockroaches, WHAT A LACK OF INTELLIGENCE, we would have to make ourselves heard sent photos of neighborhoods with ALL the premises closed with rusty closures, perhaps that is better than CREATING HOUSING, which is what this country needs since many of those basements will be for TEMPORARY contracts for workers or students who also need, as I do with mine for example… to which media should we write massively…?” Request that obtains silence in response to the rest of the members.
After the protests, the manipulated photos and the insults previously reported towards the protesters of 19—O. The next day, photos were released of some apartments that appeared with stickers on their doors that marked them as tourist apartments under the motto: “this apartment is bid by the convertible.” Some stickers distributed by the Entrebarris collective. Which gives rise to resuming the Nazi parallelism with the comment: “What you said yesterday, the Jewish star . “They are crazy, this is going to end very badly.” Another image of the demonstration shows a poster that paraphrases Pink Floyd with the motto “hey tourist, leave our flats alone”, and gets a response: “Our flats!!! Our floors, not theirs… what part they don’t understand. Let them ask the banks to give them mortgages, not appropriate ours.” With the photos of the camp, the applauded opinion is: “Let them arrest them and apply the law,” and one rentier dares to affirm that “there are organizations that subsidize them.” While another member ends up sentencing the mayor of València: “María José Catalá is the new muse of the perroflautas, what a political fraud.”
After a series of requests like, “I’m looking for someone to put an end to the woodworm” or “Can you recommend a place to exchange currency downtown?” They broadcast a video of a couple placing the aforementioned stickers on tourist flats and, adds one owner, “I put it back and a half, I told him that I had been looking for the idiot who was putting stickers on for a long time and he kept quiet like a good coward.” There are invitations to follow the WhatsApp group called Valencia is not for sale: “in case you want to know what’s going on on the other side” and even requests to infiltrate among the protesters whom they describe as “what a medley.”
The moderator, following complaints – privately – from several members who do not agree with the tone of the conversations, has asked to limit the use of the chat to professional issues: “since in this group there are people with different ideas and I receive complaints from one side and the other.” Not before a member alerted him to a fact that had caught his attention while walking by the tourist flats of Patraix: “There were several middle-aged neighbors, not dog-flutes, criticizing the tourist flats (…) the tremendous speech and blaming has penetrated.” To which they answer, “We have to break into the circle leader’s house and get his computer.”
The administrator’s request was ignored and criticism of the camping in the Town Hall Square continued throughout this week. As an example, the comment of a real estate agent who considers the situation: “It is a declaration of war against tourists and the owners of tourist apartments. “Political garbage.” Complaints to the moderator from members dissatisfied with the tone of the chat have reached such a point that she has deleted two publications, which their author considered relevant. “I was talking about something that greatly affects our group, but if someone confuses it with politics it is removed and nothing happens. “Woke reeducation reaches the owners of VT.” So for now, the chat has recovered its activity of selling sofas, searching for plasterers and various needs.
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