Watch the moment a boomer loses it with a group of anti-landlord protesters occupying a swanky Melbourne suburb – before he is escorted away by police

An angry boomer has been filmed confronting a group of protesters demonstrating against landlords who are leaving their properties empty as Australia is in the midst of a housing crisis.

The encounter was captured by tenants’ rights activist and founder of the website sh**rentals.org Jordan van den Berg, who posted the encounter on his popular Purple Pingers Instagram page.

Mr Van den Berg, who is running for the Victorian Socialists in next year’s federal election, had on Saturday organized the ‘occupation’ of a row of three vacant houses in Brunswick, a vibrant inner-city suburb about 5km north of Melbourne’s CBD.

The three houses have reportedly been vacant for years: one for 8 years, one for 10 years and one for 15 years.

A man approached the group, who had placed a sign in the front yard of one of the houses that read, “This house has been vacant for fifteen years.”

“You’re all idiots… all of you,” the man said.

He added: “You’re all idiots. This is not your house, this has nothing to do with you. You just have to move on.’

“This has nothing to do with you, it’s private property… you all need to leave.”

Someone from the group asked the man, “I just want to get this straight… is it crazy to have empathy for the homeless? Is that right?’

One of the group said: ‘Private property is for greedy bastards.’

The man snapped back, “You’re almost as intelligent as him,” and pointed at the man who asked if he was idiotic to have empathy for the homeless.

“You’re not that smart, are you,” the man said.

A police officer arrived on the scene and escorted the man to the scene.

As he was led away, he was asked again, “It’s a pretty simple question I’m asking you: Is it idiotic to show empathy for the homeless?”

At that point the police officer said, “Just move on.”

The video showed the man talking to the group of protesters before being led away by the police officer.

One protester was heard shouting: “It’s stolen Wurundjeri land, you son of a bitch.”

The man told the group they were ‘completely wrong’ before two police officers led him away.

“Please don’t touch me, please don’t touch me,” he said as he tried to brush the officer’s arm away.

The police officer calmly told the man, “I understand your frustration, but you are making it more difficult than it is.”

Mr Van den Berg told Daily Mail Australia the man is not a landlord of any of the vacant properties, but a neighbor across the road.

He claimed the man was the only one who didn’t support their protest and said he shared it “in the interest of good reporting.”

“We also talked to some other neighbors, and they were actually very nice people,” says Van den Berg.

‘I would like to thank all the neighbors who showed their support and expressed their disgust that some of these houses had been empty for more than a decade.’

He said some landlords were at their properties earlier in the morning.

Mr Van den Berg encourages squatters by keeping a list of abandoned houses that he says people should occupy if they are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

He said the three houses in Brunswick were not occupied by squatters and that police asked the group to move on, which they complied with.

The Senate candidate had sharp words for landlords who leave their properties vacant for years.

“Landlords who defend the right to leave a property vacant for 15 years should be given a real job,” he said.

‘We should not have houses without people, while there are people without houses.’

In total, almost 100,000 homes were vacant or underutilized in 2023 – a shocking figure for every 20 homes in Melbourne, according to a report from the Tax Reform Institute Prosperous Australia.

The report, which analyzed water consumption, showed that more than 27,000 homes (1.5 percent of all homes) would be completely empty in 2023, while another 70,000 (3.7 percent of all homes) were barely used.