Foreclosure vandalism story debunked

Early this month, the Far Right meeped mastodonly over a manufactured story that made its rounds through the wingnutosphere. According to this urban legend, folks who lost their homes to foreclosures angrily vandalized the houses by removing appliances and furniture and abandoning their pets to wipe their shit-caked asses all over the walls.

It turns out however that it didn't quite happen the way the freeposphere thunk. The companion animals in the cases in question weren't left behind: The evicted homeowners took their pets with them when they left. The animals were beloved family members, not property to be discarded. The bit about the missing furniture and appliances also wasn't quite what was claimed: These goodies didn't come with the houses. They were purchased separately by the residents before being kicked out.

It sounds to me like the foreclosure victims got "revenge" on greedy banks by taking appliances that were rightfully their own. They didn't "steal" them. If you put money into a house after you buy it, those improvements are yours to keep. There's some jurisdictions where the banks have lobbied to pass laws to declare that banks can seize these extra amenities as part of a foreclosure. But these laws are not legally enforceable: If you as a homeowner paid for something as a separate purchase from the house, it's yours. Period.

Foreclosures don't even have to be enforced at all, so the banks are really looking a gift horse in the mouth if they're miffed at evicted residents taking the microwave and the couch that they got separately.

With the banks trying to take appliances that aren't theirs, the laws to protect foreclosure victims should be clearer. I'd also like to see the law make it harder for banks to foreclose. Outside the right-wing intelligentsia, there's long been general agreement that it's too easy for banks to foreclose on homes.

As for the part about the abandoned pets, I don't know where that came from. Nobody with any sense would leave their dog behind in a foreclosed home. Such an inhumane act would be more the province of Freepers, except they're well-off enough that they never have to worry about losing their homes.

There's no doubt that some foreclosed homes have suffered some serious damage at the hands of residents (who were usually scammed by confiscatory interest rates and banking practices, which are nearly unregulated). But this destruction is not the national pandemic that the forces of reaction claim.

It speaks volumes about the wingnutosphere that they repeatedly side with banks against financially ruined residents, even when the banks are legally and morally wrong. The right-wing blogs are dominated by spoiled, self-righteous pricks who've never gotten their hands greasy in their lives but complain about people who are less well-off having it too easy. Because the facts don't jibe with their paranoia about the doors of their mansions being beaten down by hordes of indignant working-class and poor people, they exaggerate news items they see - or they make up bullshit out of thin air.