Lessebo municipality and Region Kronoberg organized a conference this week for people who both work and have an interest in desolate houses.

The purpose was to make contacts and create new ways for desolate houses to be used to their potential. 

- Småland is the landscape where most people want to move and also the place where very many are interested in desolate houses, says desolate house expert Robert Danielsson.

Manual

Robert Danielsson has worked with desolate houses for a long time, and he is also the one who produced the handbook that will help to use the desolate houses that are empty today.

- The handbook is for municipalities that work with this because it is so difficult to get rid of the houses today, he says.

He explains that there are many pitfalls, and that many municipalities that have tried to use the desolate houses have fallen into it.

Robert Danielsson says that despite the fact that Lessebo municipality has worked a lot with the issue, there are challenges.

Can reduce the housing shortage

Today, there are an estimated 200,000 empty houses in Sweden, and at the same time there is a housing shortage.

Robert Danielsson says that many want to move to the countryside and that the desolate houses can be useful.

Then the housing shortage would decrease, and more people would have the opportunity to settle in rural municipalities.

- It would be great fun if they came into use, he says.

ARCHIVE: Come along to the desolate house in the emigrant area - to be transformed into a dream home

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In the clip, you get to follow Robert Mattisson and Emelie Holmgren into their desolate house, which they have now begun to renovate.

Photo: SVT / Clary Kroon