Sign up to see the future, today
Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech
More and more wealthy individualsare buying up luxurious underground shelters to survive the apocalypse, whether it’s in the form of a nuclear conflict that turns the Earth’s surface into a radioactive wasteland, or a devastating pandemic that decimates the global population.
But even long before the emergence of total societal collapse, communities buying up underground condos in sprawling prepper developments in the US are already starting to turn on each other, as the Wall Street Journal reports.
Much like the petty grievances plaguing often overbearing homeowners’ associations, investors of a purportedly “five-star” bunker in rural South Dakota called Vivos xPoint are already at each others’ throats — an ironic development, given their shared motivation to survive the end of the world.
The structure was designed to protect 1,000 people from a “coming life-extinction event,” the company behind the development claims on its website.
Only a third of the individual properties — which can be bought for up to $55,000 plus rent and service fees — are occupied at the moment, according to the WSJ. However, altercations and even lawsuits are starting to rack up, long before owners are forced to take shelter in case of an actual “extinction event.”
Disputes are piling up, per the newspaper, from lawsuits over filled septic systems to complaints over off-leash dogs biting residents. During one particularly hairy incident, a man who moved into one of the units with his wife, his daughter, and her four children, pulled a gun on a Vivos contractor who had pulled up with a front-end loader to his bunker.
The resident eventually shot the contractor, injuring him. However, South Dakota’s stand-your-ground law led to a grand jury declining to indict him.
Another lawsuit, filed in September by more than 100 tenants, argued that Vivos had failed to provide them with livable dwellings and properly maintain them. Vivos also promised to build out a gym, restaurant, and general store, among other lavish amenities, none of which have been completed.
In short, the irony of a group of individuals looking to survive the apocalypse melting down over existing rules and petty grievances — long before the actual end of the world — is hard to ignore. And doubly so that they’re seeking redress in the courts, which presumably wouldn’t exist anymore in their fantasy of a post-apocalyptic society.
If this is really the best of humanity that will weather the storm, we could be doomed after all.
More on bunkers: There’s a Major Problem With the Nuclear War Bunkers The Rich Are Buying
