AP

A British man is able to keep his home even though he hasn’t made a mortgage payment since 1993. An appellate court has awarded him “squatters rights.” Apparently the guy and his wife took out a second mortgage way back when to cover business debts, but they soon couldn’t afford to make payments and went bankrupt. By 2006, he was threatened with losing his home. But under British law, if a lender doesn’t act within 12 years, you’re free and clear!

Lawyers for the lender are concerned the ruling by the court will hurt struggling homeowners because it will force lenders to act earlier, rather than later, to avoid losing their investments. The judges involved think that’s an exaggeration, though the Daily Mail reports “Lord Justice Mummery said the outcome of the case would be ‘of considerable interest to mortgagees and mortgagors in general." Lord Justice Mummery! A name worthy of Dickens!

THE BUSINESS OF MAKING TEENAGERS DISAPPEAR
More interesting news across the Pond. You may have heard that there are cell phone ringtones with high frequencies that only people under 25 can hear. Now, in England, police and shop owners are using that to their advantage. The BBC reports the popularity of sales of the Mosquito, a high-pitched noise-emitting device which only young people can hear, and which can disperse crowds with its annoying sound (sounds like something out of “Star Trek”). BRILLIANT! But civil rights groups want The Mosquito banned, saying it’s cruel. Cruel? I’ll show you cruel! Five drunken teenagers loitering in the mall.

The civil rights groups are concerned that devices like the Mosquito contribute to an increasingly negative attitude toward teens. The Children’s Commissioner of England, Sir Al Aynsley-Green (again, what is with these names?) says, "The use of measures such as these are simply demonizing children and young people, creating a dangerous and widening divide between the young and the old." But the Beeb quotes the inventor of the device, Howard Stapleton: "We're talking about a small sector of the population, teenagers, drunk, behaving badly, this device is to be used against. What about the rest of us out there? Aren't we all sick and tired of what's going on on our streets at the moment?"

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