Squatter, then, is the human counterpoint: a figure who occupies the interstices. Not a thief but a steward of abandoned corners, someone who reads the margins where the town's tidy histories fray. They moved not with malice but with a kind of necessary tenderness, slipping into unused rooms and knitting warmth where commerce had left only drafts. A squatter’s presence reasserted that places become homes by attention, not by deeds.