Editing 905: Homeownership

Jump to: navigation, search

Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.

The edit can be undone. Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then save the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision Your text
Line 8: Line 8:
  
 
==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
People who live in rented properties often face the annoying problem of being unable to make simple changes to their dwelling — for example, drilling a hole in a wall to hang a picture — unless they first gain  permission from the property owner. In many cases, if the renter drills the hole without asking permission, they will be charged for repairs.
+
One common annoyance of American renters is their inability to make simple changes to their dwelling — for example, drilling a hole in a wall to hang a picture — without having to ask for permission from the property owner. In many cases, if the renter drills the hole without asking permission, he or she is charged for repairs.  This is one reason that home ownership can be empowering, as it allows the owner to do anything they wish with their property. This can lead to mishaps however, as shown in the comic when [[Cueball]] drills holes in the house to prove his ownership, to the point of structural instability.  Cueball's last statement expresses the fact that he was actually better off having someone who could dictate what could and could not be done with his residence.  
  
This is one reason that home ownership can be empowering, as it allows the owner to do anything they wish with their property (at least, within the limits of the law). In this comic, we see [[Cueball]] (possibly the same Cueball seen in [[616: Lease]]), struggling to come to terms with the realization that he now owns a home and can do anything he likes to it, such as drilling holes in the wall.
+
The title text references fictional research showing that 60% of the {{w|toxic assets}} involved in the {{w|United States housing bubble}} were created by power drills. The implication being that Cueball is not alone in his hole drilling tendencies which created not only structural collapse of the homes, but also the financial collapse of the market as those houses would now be worth far less than the mortgages placed against them.
 
 
Unfortunately, Cueball gets so carried away with exercising this particular freedom that he drills too many holes in the house, and it collapses due to structural instability. Despite this being an unusual thing to do, it is apparently not unusual for Cueball, as the person he talks to on the phone immediately guesses what happened. Alternatively, it may be that Cueball's friend already made exactly the same mistake and is speaking from experience. Cueball's last statement expresses the fact that he was actually better off having someone who could dictate what could and could not be done with his residence, as then this wouldn't have happened.
 
 
 
The title text references fictional research showing that 60% of the toxic assets involved in the collapse of the {{w|United States housing bubble}} were created by power drills. A {{w|toxic asset}} is a financial asset for which the market has collapsed, such that it can no longer be sold. However, in this context it is also a play on the double meaning of the word "collapse", which can also refer to structural collapse. The implication is that the reason people couldn't sell their houses is because they'd drilled them full of holes to the point of structural instability, just as Cueball did.
 
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==
Line 31: Line 27:
 
:Friend: Let me guess: you drilled holes in it until it collapsed?
 
:Friend: Let me guess: you drilled holes in it until it collapsed?
 
:Cueball: I don't think I'm cut out for homeownership.
 
:Cueball: I don't think I'm cut out for homeownership.
 +
 +
==Trivia==
 +
*This may be the same Cueball as the one in [[616: Lease]], where he is signing a lease.
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
 
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

Please note that all contributions to explain xkcd may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see explain xkcd:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!

To protect the wiki against automated edit spam, we kindly ask you to solve the following CAPTCHA:

Cancel | Editing help (opens in new window)