Tenants’ rights activist Purplepingers infuriates boomer homeowners by revealing how easy it is to access ‘abandoned’ properties

Baby boomer homeowners are seething after a prominent tenants’ rights advocate stumbled across a vacant home Melbourne – and boasted that anybody could break into it if they wanted to.

Jordan van den Berg, known online as Purplepingers, encourages squatters by maintaining a list of abandoned homes that he tells people to occupy if they are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

He posted an image on social media on Monday of himself standing in front of a seemingly abandoned home in Prahran, 5km south-east of Melbourne’s CBD.

The front door had been clumsily locked shut with wire clothes hangers and padlocks which Mr van den berg said was an attempt to ‘keep people from entering’.

The median house price in Prahran is $1,745,500, according to realestate.com.au.

‘Rich people really need to lock up their abandoned houses better, especially the ones still connected to electricity and water,’ he wrote in the caption. 

Mr van den Berg told Daily Mail Australia the home was ‘quite clearly vacant’ and he had been told by neighbours it had not been occupied for at least six years.

His post was the latest in a series highlighting how many homes are currently being left empty or abandoned while many Aussies struggle to secure stable housing.

While few would disagree with Mr van den Berg advocating for fairer conditions for the 31 per cent of Australians who rent, his advocacy for squatting has irked some homeowners who argue it’s their right to leave their homes vacant if they so choose.

Backlash against Mr van den Berg exploded in April when he published the addresses of empty homes while noting that squatting isn’t ‘necessarily illegal’.

In Australia, you can typically occupy a property if it looks abandoned and the doors are unlocked. If the home is locked, you risk being charged with breaking and entering, and if you stay after being asked to leave by the owner, that’s trespassing. 

Homeowners said Mr van den Berg ‘should be arrested’ for his activism – even though it is not illegal to publish a list of vacant homes – and one even vowed to ‘smash the living s***’ out of him.

One furious comment on X, formerly Twitter, read: ‘I would love for you to break into my house. It wouldn’t end well for you, comrade.’

Mr van den Berg clarified to Daily Mail Australia he did not break into the Prahran home – only posed for a photo outside it – and said he was used to receiving death threats.

Back in April, Mr van den Berg sparked a national conversation around homelessness when he posted a video explaining that squatting was usually legal if the home is unlocked 

Back in April, he sparked a national conversation around homelessness when he posted a video explaining that squatting was usually legal if the home is unlocked.

‘Fun fact, squatting in Australia is not necessarily illegal. Which is the best type of legal. Especially if the front door doesn’t actually lock,’ he said.

‘So yeah, here’s a free house if you want it.’

A squatter can become the legal owner of a home if they stay there long enough.

Also known as adverse possession, the long-held legal tradition allows a person to take control of an abandoned property if they live or maintain it for 15 years in Victoria or 12 years in Queensland, NSW and Western Australia.

Owners can still evict anyone on their property before they reach that benchmark.

Mr van den Berg, who is a lawyer, said he had noticed absent homeowners starting to use ineffective locks to ward off would-be squatters – instead of properly securing their houses – after he started highlighting the issue.

‘I think it’s because they know that people now know it’s vacant,’ he said.

Mr van den Berg noticed absent homeowners starting to use ineffective locks to ward off squatters – instead of properly securing their houses – after he started highlighting the issue 

Mr van den Berg acknowledged his videos were polarising, but said his critics were mainly just people who would rather see homeless people stay homeless.

‘There’s people that can see the idea that we shouldn’t have people without homes while we have homes without people, that’s pretty straightforward,’ he said.

‘But there’s also people who really don’t like the idea of housing homeless people at the end of the day.’

Mr van den Berg said owners deliberately leaving properties vacant was ‘just greed’.

‘Landlords are abandoning properties so that they can increase in value and then sell them later while we have a housing crisis is ridiculous,’ he said.

‘This particular house – and many like it – don’t have any development applications,  they’re not for sale, they’re rotting.’

Mr van den Berg said that while the average Aussie was opposed to squatting as a solution to the rental crisis, the issue was nonetheless seriously affecting the fabric of Australian society

Mr van den Berg admitted the average Aussie was opposed to squatting as a solution to the housing crisis.

However, he said the housing shortage issue was nonetheless seriously affecting the fabric of Australian society, with younger people growing ‘discontent’ with their inability to ever own a home or rent at a reasonable price.

Mr van den Berg said this discontent had evolved into ‘contempt’ and a feeling that the Australian way of life is no longer something worth defending.

‘It’s quite clearly an exploited mass of people… I think a lot of people want something done about it, and if nothing happens it’s not going to look good,’ he said.

He added that previous governments had helped provide affordable housing to older generations to ‘stop people from feeling this contempt… by giving them something to defend’ – but this is no longer happening.