A Question of Ownership

The term ownership denotes a sense of ‘rights’ to an object of value or artistic creation or intellectual property.  Ownership may imply that something can be brought, borrowed, rented or sold, such as a home.

If we purchase a home this gives us legal rights to the property under council laws. However went a person chooses to rent their home to another person for a transaction of more, the tenant although living in the house, does not have the same rights as the owner who remains the title owner of the property.

Usually, this means, unless otherwise agreed to the tenant can not make structural changes to the dwellings the do not have own.  They are not free to tear up the carpet and polish the floor boards and the certain aren’t entitled to knock out a wall to make a bigger room.

However, a rental agreement does give a tenant some room to make the spare reflect who they are as a person or couple or a family. During the term of the rental agreement it is usual that the house or apartment is decorated with the tenant’s furniture and personal belongings. When they sign the lease, they are free to come and go from the property.  They are able to be absence from the property for a period of time to take a holiday, as long as they pay the rent. In others words the daily life function pretty much like someone who owns their own home.

Except the tenant is legally not entitled to sell or sub rent the house.  Common law prevents the tenant form doing this and protects the ownership legal rights of the title holder of the home.

While I was growing up, my grandparents owner a caravan which for a time they called ‘home’. This is a different type of ‘ownership’ because like a snail then could take their home with them where ever the travelled. While they owned their own home, then didn’t own the land on which they parked the caravan on.  They we free to do whatever they wanted to the own home, they choose to sell it and buy a bigger home, with its own bathroom.  We kids liked that choice because we didn’t have to walk to the toilet block when our family visit and usually trod all over granddads garden.

They could renovate and paint the van any colour they wanted and I remember a few different annexes the owned during the years the rented the tiny little patch of land on which to park the caravan on. So while they owned and could do what they liked with their home, they were also tenants of the caravan park and under their rental agreement there were ‘conditions’ of that rental agreement. 

They couldn’t park their van wherever they liked in the park.  Even how and where the parked their van on the allotment was determined by the lease. Some of the conditions I remember well as they affected me!  Visitors were not allowed to park their cars inside the caravan park and my ‘nan’ and ‘pop’ seemed to live a very long way from the front gate.

The other condition that often seemed to affect us was ‘noise level’ and respecting that unlike my other set of grand parents, my dad’s parents didn’t have a big mulberry tree to climb and swing from like Tarzan nor did the have a backyard that held a full size cricket pitch. Although somehow we still managed to find enough room to play cricket. I remember mum and dad standing guard to catch any stray ‘sixers’ and then you knew you were definitely out and some times needed to sit in the naughty corner.,  Very often the crime was our voices were too loud and were often caught by the owner of the caravan park and asked to leave the swimming pool area. It was either that or for bomb driving. Both were conditions of using the caravan park pool area and well this guy knew who we were. My grandparents had lived their long enough by the time I reached adolesces.

So you see with different types of residences come different laws, bylaws and conditions. The law of common property and council bylaws prevent us from doing whatever we feel doing whenever we like.  Living in the suburbs prevent us from having street parties in the middle of the week until 3 am in the morning.

Of course we do have a choice over whether we wish to consent and obey, the council by-laws and or the terms and conditions of our rental agreements, however if we choose to not be considerate to our neighbours or punch holds in the walls of the house we are renting then we pay the conquences. We either have to pay for the damage we cause or pay the fine as a result of braking common laws, which protects property owners and the other residents around us.

At my last rental property we had a common agreement, like the residents car parking only agreement at the Palm Beach Caravan Park where my grandparents lived. The trouble is common agreements can not be enforce like leases, tenancy rules, by-laws and common law.  The can only be neorgated between the parties involved in the common agreement and the individual tenants become liable for the behaviour of their visitors. When I visitor decides not to comply with the TENANTS CAR PARKING sign as they drive in the front gate then the tenant they are visiting is responsible to as their visitors to move their cars.

Which under the common agreement I had with my fellow tenants at the time on many occasion I should have requested many of friend and family member to move their car. I felt helpless as my visitor chose to take ‘ownership’ over my unit.  Claiming despite my common agreement with my fellow tenants, I had a right to a car park and because I don’t own a car, they had the right to park in ‘my’ car park, which I didn’t even own.

The trouble is even when we don’t have ownership over a property, lease, objective or even intellectual property, we still have this built-in innate feeling of entitlement.  This is claiming the same rights to a property or object as it owner.  ‘Debbie has no car, so I will use her entitlement on her behalf and see there’s no harm done’. 

The trouble comes when feelings of entitlement are not based on fact and unlike titles themselves no ownership rights exist, but under a common agreement we have no power to force anyone to move their car.  It is perfectly legal for a visitor to park in a private residential common car park.  Their choice to do so has not broken any law and we legally can’t have their car towed away, tempting as it was at times.

Inappropriate claims of entitlement or ownership although the may be perfectly legal have conqunences often for the person they are claiming ownership for or even at times ownership of another person.  We have all herd of marriage where the husband assumes ownership of his wife and the wife’s freedom and often her body is abused.

The laws, leases, ownership and common agreements I have been at pains to explain are all examples of boundaries.  Boundaries are the things that keep us safe physical, emotional and financially. 

Just as property owners may chose to keep the houses safe with fences, security doors and alarm systems, rental agreements, by-laws and common laws and even common agreement  are designed to kept residents safe.

There is no use having an emergency evacuation plan for my unit complex if there is no common agreement if not all of the tenants to follow the plan.  If everyone meets at the  meeting point except for Harry, who decides to go to the road front, despite the common agreement, we many assume because Joe heard Harry’s TV going just before the fire started, the Harry is trapped in the burning building.  Just because common agreements are not legally binding doesn’t mean the results of keeping to the agreement aren’t devastating.

For every choice we make has consequences, so too do our personal choices not to respect the common agreements between two or more people.  However not all boundaries are that clearly defined, many personal boundaries remain invisible, unwritten, uncommunicated and only reveal when the boundaries have been cross. And has we have seen when ownership issues are confused and common agreements are challenged or ignored then the probability, that people can be emotionally, physically or financially hurt or abused runs high.

For me the greatest damage to ownership is either a direct challenge to that ownership or someone assuming entitlements that are not owned or belonging to them.  When challenges to ownership and rights of ownership are many, then our natural boundaries for defence are compromised.

Sooner or later one too many planks are stolen from the fence and it leaves our homes as defencless as a tent with out a padlock. Only so many railings and posts can keep our invisible defences together, before we are harmed.

I feel hurt many times when inappropriate ownership is taken many and family, friends and support workers wrongly use entitlements that are mine and mine only.

One of the things that blurs the boundaries of ownership or sense of entitlement is feelings of familiarity. A sense or an illusion that a friend, family member or support worker is in a environment where they feel ‘at home in’!

Let me give you an example of how I imagine this might happen.  During my 10 to 15 year battle with the Queensland Disability Services Department a number of friends helped and assisted with daily living activities, which I struggle with as my mobility and ability to do things decreased. Over the years my wonderful friends and family members have assisted me with transport, cooking means, shopping, moving house, washing, cleaning and much more. In a very real sense I owe my continued independence to these friends and family members if it wasn’t for their love and support, I would never been able to achieve so many of my dreams.

My friends have always been very liberal with their time and resources. As a person with a disability I know how truly bless to enjoy so many quality friendships. In the disable community the gift of friendship is a rare treasure and many support workers are surprised I have friends without disabilities as if I live in a ‘closed community’ to which only they are pilivage to enter.  Again this denotes some type of entitlement on their behalf.

I have one dear friend who has faithfully support me every Monday over the last 10 to 15 years. She has assisted me with anything from a cup of tea on days when I not feeling well, to transporting me to medical appointments, doing my weekly shopping, advocating on my behalf with service providers, basic cleaning and meal prep.

As you can imagine over that length of time, my friend has become very familiar with my increasing needs and home.  My friend knows better than anyone else where things belong or should I say where things should belong.  Many weeks I am thank you my friend putting my kitchen back together, only to have it rearranged by the time she arrives back the next week.  I often joke with her, don’t ask me where the greater is I just live her and obliviously someone has found a more suitable home for it.’

For my friend now in her eighties who grew up in an era where ‘everything had a place, and it should go back in its place immediate after use.’  If you were to visit my home you would get a fair indication of how much I rebel against that rule.

If the washing up is only done once a day and my bed only gets made when the sheets are wash, then these never even rate on my annoyance levels. My battle is the bathroom and making sure the bins are emptied.  You know all those little jobs that need to be done that no one likes to do like cleaning the toilet, sadly at times I resolve myself to doing these tasks.

So the fact that my table cloth in not sitting quite right on the table escape me.  Little does she know it’s only on for 2 days per week.  As you my readers know most of the week the table is covered in art supplies.

In the main it is particular friend is respectful and knows better than anyone else the frustrations I have with having up to eight different support workers invade my home each week, each with their own little twist on how they like to worker and exactly what their job description entails.

So its easily to understand how my friend can have a slip of the tongue and refer to my new set of mugs ‘as her pretty cups’.  I just cringe at the thought of the day I have to tell her, I dropped or knock one of the cups on to the floor and it didn’t bounce.  To my friend I think these cups of mine are prized treasured, almost like her great grandchildren.  I must admit to myself when I discovered them in a small country town gift shop they felt like prized treasures and I too enjoy the warmth as I drink my morning cup of coffee.

While I have a sense of appreciation of my eighty year old friend’s familiarity in my home, this is not so true of my support workers, particularly the ones that have worked with me for under 12 months. The other day I shared with you the example of my worker who enjoys a cup of coffee with me.  While than is not usual and most of my workers take time to chat and catch up on my week over a cup of coffee its her approach that gets underneath my skin.

This worker has become so familiar in my home after a relatively short time, the she walks into my kitchen puts her handbag down and pops the kettle on.  The thought to check it I want a cup of coffee is almost secondary as she commences to take 2 cups down. To me this is a sense of entitlement she has developed when she works in my home.  As if someone who works in an office building might commence their working day by making a cup of coffee.  It’s just a ritual in her day, that she probably hasn’t even given though to home she treats my home and how rude I feel this action is.  Because no I don’t always feel like a cup of coffee or tea when she arrives, one of the neighbours might of just popped down or for some reason I didn’t feel like waiting for her to arrive.

Some of my workers find it difficult that unlike many of their clients my day and the choices I make don’t revolved around their arrival. My life does suddenly start because their arrived to save the day.

I like to amuse myself with the thought if the workers are taking the liberty of claiming entitlements in my home if it would be share to ask them to pay a share of the rent for the rights the seem to have.

My hunch is that they be horrified by such a request, so I guess I’d better stick to paying the household bills