There oughta be a law!
Also one can help them in this process:
https://www.hermitcrabanswers.com/finding-shells-for-hermit-crabs/
I saw a post a few weeks back about a guy who found replacement shells for hermit crabs that had adopted bottle caps and other plastic trash. Truly superheroic!
They also duke it out if two crabs want the same shell. I recall one video where two crabs were goin round the outside when a third one just moves into the shell. Hilarious at scale, but I bet the first two were pissed. Good thing they weren’t pistol shrimp.
B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but tHiNk Of AlL tHe LoSt ShArEhOlDeR vAlUe ThO!?
Seriously though, if crabs used currency this would never happen. There would be one crab with all the shells and the other crabs would have to bring food offerings or whatever their currency would be in order to get one.
Surprisingly they don’t have that much of the market.
I counted the word “institutional” used almost once per sentence. There were a couple of sentences that didn’t use it, but there was at least one sentence that used it twice. Plus all the figures and captions for them too.
Though despite being not “institutional”, the market seems to have behaved a little as if it were, due to use of software to fix prices at what the landlords believed that the market would bear. So still price gouging, regardless of whether done by individuals or giant mega-corporations.
Though still a good point that the article makes.
Seems more analogous to clothes than housing — clothes can be “too big” in the sense that the extra size is detrimental to the function, which is somewhat different from houses.
And it’s pretty common to have buy-nothing groups in cities or even at large companies. Got a loooot of hand-me-down clothes for my toddler from friends, family, and randos in the neighborhood.
Yes and no. I’m sure there is an argument to be made that a house can be too big. Bigger houses require more maintenance, cleaning, higher taxes. Downsizing a house is also a retirement strategy.
Yes, that’s a better analogy.
Actually swapping house like a hermit crab swap shell would leave very little time to move furniture, put some fresh paint on walls, have the owner review the house to return the security deposit, etc
Pretty sure hermit crabs (like most animals) aren’t renting. The previous owner of that shell has abandoned it, so they’d be squatters or, lacking any concept of private property, simply inhabitants. Point is they wouldn’t need any owner to return security deposits they never made.
Moving furniture and personal belongings is a good point though, they don’t have any of that. Most houses aren’t too mobile either. Clothes just fit better.
An animal named a hermit crab has better social relationships than humans I’m so pissed.
