I have a mysterious neighbor who bought the land next to mine 11 years ago, rezzed a few things right after, and presumably never came back

[lucagrabacr]

I just bought another roadside land earlier today, and just earlier I decided to check on my neighbor's parcel because they have this random prim rezzed on the edge of their parcel bordering mine. I checked the creation date of the prim, it says 28th of January, 2007. I thought it might have been something created a long time ago but just recently rezzed, but it doesn't seem like it, so I investigated further.

It turned out everything on the parcel are very old prims which are clearly not prefabs, and most likely been created on the spot right then and there. I saw the land info and read that it had been claimed on 25th of January, 2007, so three days before the prim I mentioned was rezzed. The other prims are also rezzed around those dates. And lastly, the land owner's profile is totally empty.

Wow  so I guess this person is still paying for this land for 11 years straight without ever coming back to the land. It's not a small land too, it's 3632m2 big, so that's like $25 every month. (not sure how much the fee for a land that big was back then though). It's a very fascinating find to me  it's crazy how the things on the land predates even the protected roadside's road next to it (the road was made in 2009)

Here's a screenshot of the land, and the location is here (I linked the road next to the land) if anyone wants to check it out

Edit: Checked further and saw something that was made on February of 2007, but still not too far from January 

Edited February 24, 2018 by lucagrabacr

[LexxiXhan]

4 hours ago, lucagrabacr said:

Here's a screenshot of the land, and the location is here (I linked the road next to the land) if anyone wants to check it out

Excellent. I know some people who might be looking for something to do...

 

[GoSpeed Racer]

Somewhere in Europe, a dead, mummified pensioner is sitting in front of their computer, waiting for the scene to rez.....

[Bree Giffen]

What a mystery! Can you tell if the owner has logged in since then?

[Claireschen Hesten]

It could be the person or group that owns the land has long since left SL i've been in SL nearly 10 years and for almost 9 of those years i've been renting the same mainland plot my closest neighbour had an animation store owned the land since 2006 maybe earlier never saw sight nor sound of anyone connected to the store in my time then last year it was reclaimed by LL cleared and made abandoned so not impossible the owner stopped paying tier long ago and the Linden's haven't dealt with it yet

[ChinRey]

14 hours ago, lucagrabacr said:

Wow  so I guess this person is still paying for this land for 11 years straight without ever coming back to the land.

Believe it or not, there's nothing unusual about that. There are probably more Rip van Winkles than active users who own land on mainland SL. You may find this article interesting:

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2012/09/second-life-land-barons.html

 

 

 

Edited February 24, 2018 by ChinRey

[LittleMe Jewell]

Did you check the sky?  I know quite a few folks that rezzed a variety of objects on the ground years ago, to give it a lived on look, but their true residence is high up in the sky.  I'm not sure they ever even go to ground level there anymore.

[Qie Niangao]

11 hours ago, lucagrabacr said:

Wow  so I guess this person is still paying for this land for 11 years straight without ever coming back to the land. It's not a small land too, it's 3632m2 big...

If I recall the folklore correctly, there was once an offer of 4096 sq.m. for life in exchange for a substantial one-time fee, so folks who did that could continue to own a parcel indefinitely without paying recurring fees. I vaguely recall hearing of another offer at a different time for only 1024 sq.m., but this was all before my time (I started in 2006) so I have no first-hand knowledge.

If that's indeed how this land is owned, it would have been acquired some time after the lifetime offers were over, but those founding landowners could sell their original parcels and buy new land as continents were added.

[Pixie Kobichenko]

4 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

If I recall the folklore correctly, there was once an offer of 4096 sq.m. for life in exchange for a substantial one-time fee, so folks who did that could continue to own a parcel indefinitely without paying recurring fees. I vaguely recall hearing of another offer at a different time for only 1024 sq.m., but this was all before my time (I started in 2006) so I have no first-hand knowledge.

If that's indeed how this land is owned, it would have been acquired some time after the lifetime offers were over, but those founding landowners could sell their original parcels and buy new land as continents were added.

Here is what you're remembering:  http://secondlife.wikia.com/wiki/Lifetime_Account

[LittleMe Jewell]

37 minutes ago, Pixie Kobichenko said:

Here is what you're remembering:  http://secondlife.wikia.com/wiki/Lifetime_Account

I had forgotten about those.  I meant someone once with that type of account.  They said that due to some RL stuff they were only logging in a few times a year, but it was okay because they didn't have to actually pay any ongoing fees for their account or land.  Those people could pass on in RL and their account and land here could literally live on forever without them ever logging in again.

[Phil Deakins]

2 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Believe it or not, there's nothing unusual about that. There are pårobably more Rip van Winkles than active users who own land on mainland SL. You may find this article interesting:

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2012/09/second-life-land-barons.html

That was nice read. Desmond Shang used to be a forum regular but I haven't seen him post for many years now. Pity. He always wrote good, sensible posts.

Edited February 24, 2018 by Phil Deakins

[lucagrabacr]

4 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:

What a mystery! Can you tell if the owner has logged in since then?

I'm not sure but I assumed they haven't logged in for a long time since their profile is empty and nothing on the land is recent

2 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Did you check the sky?  I know quite a few folks that rezzed a variety of objects on the ground years ago, to give it a lived on look, but their true residence is high up in the sky.  I'm not sure they ever even go to ground level there anymore.

I just checked and I found a build that's similarly ancient  

2 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

If I recall the folklore correctly, there was once an offer of 4096 sq.m. for life in exchange for a substantial one-time fee, so folks who did that could continue to own a parcel indefinitely without paying recurring fees. I vaguely recall hearing of another offer at a different time for only 1024 sq.m., but this was all before my time (I started in 2006) so I have no first-hand knowledge.

If that's indeed how this land is owned, it would have been acquired some time after the lifetime offers were over, but those founding landowners could sell their original parcels and buy new land as continents were added.

Wow! I didn't know about that, must've been a really good deal  

 

2 hours ago, Pixie Kobichenko said:

Here is what you're remembering:  http://secondlife.wikia.com/wiki/Lifetime_Account

Wow, that was indeed a really good deal  

[Sassy Kenin]

This thread reminds me of some really good reasons why I moved off the mainlands.

[ChinRey]

2 hours ago, Phil Deakins said:

That was nice read. Desmond Shang used to be a forum regular but I haven't seen him post for many years now. Pity.

I have a feeling he's a Rip van Winkle himself by now.

 

[ChinRey]

2 hours ago, lucagrabacr said:

I'm not sure but I assumed they haven't logged in for a long time since their profile is empty and nothing on the land is recent

Oh yes, that's quite common. You should have seen some of the sims around where I live, Dalton, Sawrey, Ambleside... whole sims where practically every parcel is owned by somebody who hasn't been there for years.

 

Here are four examples - all from the same sim - and obviously builds by people who started full of enthusiasm and then just lost interest but never got around to abandon:

This was supposed to be the office of a couple:

Traffic count 3, a few scattered objects - and a few stray prims stuck in the branches of the trees - I didn't get those in the picture.

 

Here's one who only got around to rez a few prims before they lost interest:

 

Oh, and script them - half those prims have a something called "New script" inside them. Traffic count 1.

 

Some didn't even get as far as rezzing a prim:

 

This one makes me really sad because even though it may be outdated by today's standard, it's actually a very good example of an early SL build and it's completely forgotten by the owner and everybody else - traffic count: 0

 

But these are just a few completely random examples. There are so many "Rip van Winkle" builds like these all over Second Life.

Edited February 24, 2018 by ChinRey

[Phil Deakins]

1 hour ago, ChinRey said:

I have a feeling he's a Rip van Winkle himself by now.

I'd be surprised if he is. I'm pretty sure I keep seeing people in the forum recommend Caledon as a good place to learn about SL for beginners.

[ChinRey]

9 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

I'd be surprised if he is. I'm pretty sure I keep seeing people in the forum recommend Caledon as a good place to learn about SL for beginners.

Oh, Caledon is still there and he has to make sure those sims are still running of course. But he doesn't seem to be active beyond that. As for Oxbridge, if I understand correctly, he hasn't been involved int hat for ages, he just host it.

[Maitimo]

2 hours ago, ChinRey said:

Oh yes, that's quite common. You should have seen some of the sims around where I live, Dalton, Sawrey, Ambleside... whole sims where practically every parcel is owned by somebody who hasn't been there for years.

 

Here are four examples - all from the same sim - and obviously builds by people who started full of enthusiasm and then just lost interest but never got around to abandon:

This was supposed to be the office of a couple:

Traffic count 3, a few scattered objects - and a few stray prims stuck in the branches of the trees - I didn't get those in the picture.

This, and your other examples, are all Linden-owned, so there probably isn't any tier being paid on this land at all. I think (though I'm not certain) they're all ex-Lindens who presumably got locked out of their accounts when their employment was terminated, and so never had the opportunity to empty or abandon the land.

[ChinRey]

8 hours ago, Matty Luminos said:

This, and your other examples, are all Linden-owned, so there probably isn't any tier being paid on this land at all.

Oh, you noticed?

 

8 hours ago, Matty Luminos said:

I think (though I'm not certain) they're all ex-Lindens

Oh no, at least some of them are still very much here. The owner of the build in the last picture is the one you probably should talk to if you think you've found a piece of abandoned land that LL has overlooked.

For the others who didn't get the joke: Linden Village is a group of sims around the Waterhead infohub, reserved for private homes of Linden Lab employees. For all practical purposes, the whole place was all but abandoned many years ago.

Edited February 25, 2018 by ChinRey

[Bitsy Buccaneer]

1 hour ago, ChinRey said:

For the others who didn't get the joke: Linden Village is a group of sims around the Waterhead infohub, reserved for private homes of Linden Lab employees. For all practical purposes, the whole place was all but abandoned many years ago.

Does that mean we can or can't squat in that lovely water stilt house? Asking for a friend

[ChinRey]

38 minutes ago, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

Does that mean we can or can't squat in that lovely water stilt house? Asking for a friend

Only one way to find out.

[Dee Linden]

On 2/25/2018 at 4:37 AM, Bitsy Buccaneer said:

Does that mean we can or can't squat in that lovely water stilt house? Asking for a friend

a friend...mhmmmm.  if your friend asks, I'm quite sure the answer will be yes.

[Pussycat Catnap]

I understand that when SL was new for a short time they sold lifetime accounts. pay a one time fee and you get lifetime premium and never have to pay again... Many of those people might have moved on from SL. Many of them might even have moved on from RL...