Question about squatter's objects.

Not so hypothetical scenerio:

A person owns a sim and logs in to discover that someone has placed several objects on the land setting up a home, hundreds of prims and has done so without permission.

The standard procedure of course is to return the prims. However, I'm wondering about whether using other options are against the rules or not.

1) Should the landowner AR the squatter? It squatting an ARable offense?
2) Does the landowner have the right to delete the items instead of returning them?
3) Does the landowner have the right to simply ban the squatter and keep their items, effectively taking possesion of them as long as they want, until they no longer choose to keep them and then eventually returning them weeks or months down the road, or even never?

Maybe I just haven't looked in the right places but I haven't found any written rules anywhere about this issue.

Great questions!

These are meant generally--I understand some situations will be "he said"/"she said" and there's always more to the story...


1) "Squatting" itself isn't against the Community Standards. "Disturbing the Peace" is. How to tell? Well usually, say you send someone's prims back to them, and they keep placing down new ones, or worse stuff like littering flames and particle spammers all over. Then *that* is certainly ARable. Otherwise, save yourself the time and send all the things back.

2) Yes, under the current system, you sure do. This has been controversial in a number of instances, so we're considering removing "Delete" and simply allowing you to "Return", since either way, it accomplishes the goal of getting rid of the prims.

3) In situations like this, obviously some very nasty things can happen--I've heard all sorts of variations on a theme. This connects to #2 because I've heard reactions that go like, "I need to get back on that island I'm banned for so I can pick up all MY stuff and I don't want it to be deleted!" Obviously the first step is between Residents, to make contact and ask if a return trip can be made to collect the items. If that fails, then an abuse report should be filed so our Abuse Team can investigate.


What I've often seen is emotional heatedness, then a cooling down period, then someone is allowed to get their stuff and go.

But every story, and every side of the story is different. Again, these are general guidelines, meant to be applied flexibly to the specific context. =^_^=