# Adverse Possesion Eco-Village Project in Pittsburgh PA



## AnarchyandChaosInc

Anarchy and Chaos Inc. is a currently small collective interested in promoting organized squatting in the Pittsburgh area. We believe that taking over abandoned properties for the purposes of providing housing, community centers, and public gardens should be a prime goal of our society.

It is our philosophy that the reclamation of abandoned property for the people far outweigh the need for profit. These projects provide multiple benefits to local communities, including the removal of blight and providing alternative resources for those in need, including but not limited ecologically sustainable housing.

We're currently seeking volunteers and new members to join us in building a squat oriented eco-village with these goals in mind. If interested, please contact us via [email protected], Or through the message function on here. We are more likely to check the messages in here currently because squat the planet we can kill multiple birds with one stone.

Now A little about the specific project we are mostly working on right now.
(Repurposed from a message thread with Matt Derrick to save me time on typing and what not because I am relatively backlogged as far as CPU stuff goes. I still need to work on the blog and or website. I suppose working on that could double for this. Keep an eye out for a better presented version of this in the future. With more up to date pictures and everything. Currently trying to get the word out in the meantime. This is in a sense more of a rough draft. )


I think you will be interested in the history of the land. We are located relatively near where Landslide community farm is or was. Landslide the farm part has recently become active again they recently did some planting. My avatar picture is actually where we plan on starting the squat eco-village. In the background is house foundation. This used to be all streets and houses but the land slid and then nature took back over. I think the land slid because they cut the trees down thus the root structure not being there to hold the land together and what not for the development. I don't think the land will slide again unless humans cut down a bunch of trees for development again. So our idea is to build an eco-village that works with the land. The area that can be potentially used is up to 23 acres if we ever get the manpower to manage it.

So far we haven't had any issues with cops in this area and we have been playing with this idea since 2012 making trails and camping. We are also going to start a non-profit which may seem odd but what we are trying to do is legally get a piece of land and adverse posses out from there. At least that's the idea. We want to maybe start a 501 (C)2 (Land trust) for the ecovillage part. If there are flaws in your experience of people trying this and failing it would be nice to know because we are trying to piece together things we think will work. I did look into nonprofits and squatting and what I got was some people made a non-profit to teach people how to squat. Also at the end of the lower east end squat in new york some of the squats got transferred to a nonprofit that's part of what inspired the idea. Specifically the need for a 501 (c)2 so it can be collectively managed nonhiercharcaly. The city in a sense doesn't want these blighted and abandoned areas to remain so anyways so we want to have a legal method of communication with them.

Another idea we have is to start an Eco (permaculture) based landscaping company to fund our projects. It would be anarchistically run. Even if we get normal landscaping jobs the "waste" from those are great for compost. In a sense, we can even use funds from that to buy pieces of land as we go if we need to. We are also talking about having a sliding scale pay mechanism. As in suburban or rich people pay more than poor neighborhoods. Honestly, there will probably be a lot of free work done in poor areas.

Honestly are biggest problems currently are manpower. We need to get more involved with the rest of the Pittsburgh squat scene. Which we will do. We have had our fair share of people coming and going but our "core group" is basically 4 people. We would like that to grow. We would like to have a much bigger core group. We are becoming more public to do so. It's just recruiting for squat projects can be kinda sensitive obviously. We ended up deciding that recruiting for the ecovillage isn't as risky because at worse we are facing the equivalent of a bum camp eviction if we get busted so to speak. Which isn't really that bad. We were pretty informal but are planning on making our presence as a collective more manifested into reality. Like showing up at radical bookstores as a group. putting flyers up. Having meetings. that kind of thing. This year we are really going to try to make things take off outside of our core group. Anarchy and Chaos Inc is kinda our working title for our squat collective not really official. Unless the people that join end up liking it as much as I do. Of course, Anarchy and Chaos will not be the name of the non-profit for obvious reasons.

One of the best ways you could help are well if you know people that are down for this kinda thing and want to be involved send them our way or if they happen to be going through Pittsburgh or something. Better yet come yourself. We're serious about this. Eventually, we want to get it to where we can even have events and even be semi-open to the public kinda like an edible community park area. We have community areas being planned that are open to the public. We also plan on having multiple camping locations. Working on a vetting process too which will mostly be used for any actual buildings we are looking into rehabilitating. Also, any advice anyone may have would help. Most of our current projects are based around getting the place ready for planting in spring and trying to network with the local community that may be interested in this type of thing. I am sure there is something I am forgetting.

We once went to a city council meeting and all the actual citizens that showed up loved us. It was interesting. Three anarchists show up to a city council meeting is almost like the beginning of some joke but it worked out well. Everyone, there was worried about gentrification. They loved what we said and wanted to know when our organization's meetings were. We didn't have formal meeting times then. We missed an opportunity. I should have just made up a day and time on the spot lol. The meeting itself was about an eco-innovation program.

Another project we would like to start is the building of rocket mass heaters to heat the area in winter. .
We are particularly interested in building the Tee Pee version and the ring of fire version because they fit our situations quite nicely. None are built though so if you plan on coming in the fall or winter months be prepared for cold, or wait until a warmer month.

If you have any questions or suggestions or want to be involved please do not hesitate to ask or message us. You can find general location by looking up landslide community farms in Pittsburgh pa. We are located right around there but are not part of them. We are a different entity.

I posted some relatively old pictures below. Since then we have started hugelkulture mounds. As you can see we have spent quite a bit of time on trails alone. The trail system runs through all 23 acres so that was quite a bit of work for a few people all by itself. Sometimes i question if we should of spent so much time on them. Seeing as trails like to get overgrown sometimes.There is so much potential here. It's rather beautiful to me as well. We want to get the place ready for full-scale planting by spring. We are working on it. Every little bit of help helps.
Thanks for your time and interest
Anarchy and Chaos Inc.

(we really should have made this post better. Soon there will be an updated version with updated pictures and a bit better presented. Like I said just trying to get it out there for interested people so next time if we get more help next update, will be so much better because more will be done. The spot with the tent is where we are starting. We have started production of the hugelkulture mounds to prep for planting. that is most of our fall and winter plans. Besides building some structures and rocket mass heaters if we get materials. I said all this already in the main body.)


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## AnarchyandChaosInc

Sorry, the pictures are relatively crappy. I have been waiting for my friend to upload the ones we took more recently but he has not yet. I still want to take more besides those ones anyways though.


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## Tude

Hi there - STP mod here - this is very cool! Very cool for here but I'd also like to include another site I mod which is a facebook group that has a wide gathering as well as other ties to facebook groups which is The Official Dirty Kids Couchsurfing Coalition ahttps://www.facebook.com/groups/DKCSC/

There are many people who look through STP and the facebook sites for farms, areas to work/live etc and this is quite awesome. Starting a conversation with people with info on these hands on/farms/collective builds to build a resource. I think I started something like this a couple years ago and I didn't follow through but you have my interest right now. 

Good luck on your endeavor!


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## AnarchyandChaosInc

Tude said:


> Hi there - STP mod here - this is very cool! Very cool for here but I'd also like to include another site I mod which is a facebook group that has a wide gathering as well as other ties to facebook groups which is The Official Dirty Kids Couchsurfing Coalition ahttps://www.facebook.com/groups/DKCSC/
> 
> There are many people who look through STP and the facebook sites for farms, areas to work/live etc and this is quite awesome. Starting a conversation with people with info on these hands on/farms/collective builds to build a resource. I think I started something like this a couple years ago and I didn't follow through but you have my interest right now.
> 
> Good luck on your endeavor!



Okay I will copy and past this post in there...Or maybe just link to this. Maybe both


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## AnarchyandChaosInc

Asked to join group under the name michael eris. (its kinda my pen name for when i dont want to use my real one.


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## Tude

I approved you. Much luck to you.  I am sending you a pm as I would to add your info to a list of places that I am building with essential info on it (contacts, expectations, pay? food stuff and more stuff). thanks!


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## AnarchyandChaosInc

Okay once we have the landscaping company part going people will be paid for the work connected with that. But on ecovillage site that's volunteer based currently. I will just respond to pm i guess.


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## AnarchyandChaosInc

Tude said:


> I approved you. Much luck to you.  I am sending you a pm as I would to add your info to a list of places that I am building with essential info on it (contacts, expectations, pay? food stuff and more stuff). thanks!


Is the PM on here or facebook? I checked both. didnt get a new one and either i dont think.


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## AnarchyandChaosInc

Did you mean you were going to pm me here or on fb with the questions.


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## AnarchyandChaosInc

Updates.






Compost Bin we made. 




Same as above just another picture lol




Beginning of Hugelkulture mound. More will be added through out fall. If anyone doesnt know what one is here is a quick introduction thanks to wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hügelkultur




This is a local Russian homeless person who sometimes helps and wants to hang out. We found him originally sleeping in the open air. We gave him a tent. (The guy on the left is the Russian person. The one on the right is one of our peeps)




We are torn on what to do with this area. We are thinking of hacking the vines back and either turning it into a vineyard of grapes or something. Most likely going to hack it back and make garden beds and what not. Quite possibly a mixture of both. Pronk who came down a couple days ago did say the little berries on them are edible and related to grapes...but aren't exactly the tastiest. We're going to probably do a mixure of things with this area. 




Just another picture




Was trying to get a picture illustrating the tree line. These vines are really bad for the trees. They like to pull them down. 





Starting another Hugelkulture mound there. 


Argh some of the pictures disappeared for some reason


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## AnarchyandChaosInc

Oh yeah, pictures in the attachments section of the post that are of trashed areas. Those are areas we have not gotten to de-trashing. We have a workday scheduled soon for that area. Its one of the few areas we have not gotten to yet. To be clear that is not a result of us being there. Quite the opposite.


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## AnarchyandChaosInc

There is a lot more we got done but by that time my phone was very very dead. I will add more pics probably in like a week or so. Be expecting consistent updates if you follow us.


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## AnarchyandChaosInc

For example that compost bin...we transported a bunch of compost with a wheel barrel to fill it. We also expanded the Hugelkulture mounds more. Next time i will be taking a video tour as soon as i get there. Also will be taking more pictures.


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## AnarchyandChaosInc

Most updates may be like a visit or so behind. By the time we get done doing everything the phone is normally dead.


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## AnarchyandChaosInc




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## ghostjohny

very awesome :]


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## SovereignTree

If i find myself in Pittsburgh i am definitely hitting you up this is exactly what the world needs, and i pray for your success


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## Tastebitterfruit

Are those vines kudzu? Because if so I've heard that you can make tea and jelly from it but it's very quick growing and if you are planning to farm near it be sure to cut it back very far away and keep an eye out for any sprouting in the garden from fallen seeds, kudzu is relentless.


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## Deleted member 2626

hell yes. im in penna most of the year and think I will get contact with you


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## carol

this is awesome!!! i would like to help you guys out! im in ny and i can work my way out to pitsburgh, but in june. i don't know if its too late to contribute in anything? let me know i would definitly be down to help you guys out!


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## Matt Derrick

any updates? is this project still around?


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## Satanic Botanic

Matt Derrick said:


> any updates? is this project still around?



Also interested in this. Going up to Pittsburgh in a couple months. Would love to check it out.


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## Matt Derrick

seeing how the OP hasn't responded and hasn't logged into the site in over 6 months, i'd say this project is dead.


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## sixsixtysixth

from back in the day.


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## dprogram

How cool!. Is that Kudzu Vine? Sheep and goats would clear up that land super quick and they are fairly cheap. If you don't plan on eating them you may be able to get a couple old ewes for free. Are sheep a thing in PA? I wish you guys the best of luck!


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## Matt Derrick

Matt Derrick said:


> seeing how the OP hasn't responded and hasn't logged into the site in over 6 months, i'd say this project is dead.


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