Noncommercial House (aka the Freeshop, ex-Free School, etc.) was evicted on 30th November 2009, by high court bailiffs. Only one person was staying in the house, who left with his personal stuff. Most of the clothes and other giveaways were neatly packed and taken to a storage room by the executors. The implications are that the police now has around 100 shorts, 3 tesco uniforms, several dozen umbrellas of different sizes and descriptions, a strange book entitled “How to speak about books that you haven’t read”, and a box of single socks (they might find their other halves in the storage rooms).
Volunteers of the house arrived late, triggered by an SMS some time after noon, only to find the workers of a sytex company on site. There has been a previous eviction attempt, when a 12 hour notice was gives by the bailiffs. Haphazard barricades proved to be successful in warding off the executioners for over a month, but their second coming was not announced. Fortunately, most of the very important/useful things were already out of the house. An electric toy flute (to play the “Wake of the Freeshop”) and some copies of the new Dealing With Distractions maga-zine has been re-acquired after some social engineering, along with the lovely green bench. The latter now serves the falafel shop on the corner, commemorating the freeshop and replacing another broken/stolen one that was at the same place.
If you want to support the freeshop and possible future plans email noncommercialhouse…at…riseup.net, come along on Sunday 13th December or make use of that empty shop near you!