A Victorian woman has been left traumatised after trespassers broke into her vacant property, changed the locks and stole her family heirlooms. Carol’s address was posted online by a federal election candidate known as ‘purple pingers’ who encourages his followers to squat in vacant homes.
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00:00Carol had never owned a home until she inherited her father's property.
00:07It sat vacant for years following his death in 2007 because she was told it was uninhabitable.
00:13I'm not rich. I spent four years renovating it and every penny basically to bring it to a stage where I could live in it and then my circumstances changed.
00:25For years she stayed at the property sporadically but when her mother died last May those visits temporarily stopped.
00:32It was around the same time the address was posted online by Jordan Vandenlam also known as Purple Pingers.
00:38Tens of thousands of people saw the post but Carol was entirely unaware.
00:43She returned to her property a few months later to find she was locked out and an intruder had installed security cameras.
00:51At that point I think my heart was in my throat and I was panicking.
00:56When Carol eventually gained access nearly everything inside was gone.
01:00It was the stuff that belonged to my father that had the greatest impact and my first thought was oh my god everything that he owned that I kept is gone.
01:11Dubbed a renter's advocate he does not advocate for theft or damage to property but posts the addresses of long-term vacant properties encouraging followers to squat there.
01:21There's so many empty homes while people don't have homes and I think that's disgusting and I want to live in a world where everyone has everything that they need.
01:32Mr Vandenlam is currently running as a Victorian socialists candidate in the upcoming federal election.
01:38He says while there is a process of verification involved he did not visit Carol's home and still has questions around why it was vacant for so long.
01:47Like generally speaking if you've got a house empty for 10 years and it's a spare house and you don't intend to live in it you should sell it or you should let someone live in it.
01:56There are offences for just us as well as civil rights that the owner of the property has.
02:03There's no way of knowing if the social media post led to Carol's home being broken into but she believes it's no coincidence and she wants Mr Vandenlam's supporters to think twice about squatting.
02:14It's not a game you know you nominate a house and say it's vacant but you don't understand why it is vacant.
02:22Carol now lives in fear the intruders could return and the impact of losing her father's belongings will continue to haunt her.