Croatia Empty House Notes (4) Squat Life Free Shop freeshop

Editor's note: The author is a student in the Department of Environmental Engineering at National Cheng Kung University, and is studying agriculture as an exchange student in Croatia. This piece follows the previous article and introduces the local squat (occupying vacant houses) movement, and the experience of organizing a free shop to share daily necessities.

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It is a free shop, not a flea market

When I had just moved in, the people here were busy with an activity, mainly opening this free shop to the public.

A free shop is a little bit like a flea market. Everything in it comes from things other people no longer want, but it is not for sale, and it is not bartering or an exchange of equal value either. The idea of a free shop is "take and leave": take what you want, leave what you do not want. And the key point is... you do not necessarily have to contribute anything in order to take things from the free shop. Everything here was originally something others did not want anyway. The purpose of this shop is simply to keep these still-usable things from being thrown into the landfill, rather than, like a flea market, to "create economic value out of waste."