What Happens When Your House Becomes a Pokémon Gym

Do you see people wandering around your neighborhood aimlessly while staring at their phones?

Well, yes. And it's been that way for years. But now there's a new reason: Pokémon GO.

Pokémon GO is an augmented reality game which projects Pokémon all over the world. Download the app to play the game and you'll see Pokémon layered over the real world. They are, apparently, everywhere (for example, a younger librarian at my library informs me that our workplace is infested with them).

In the desire to catch 'em all, some players are disrespecting the boundaries of personal property. They're going to hunt Pokémon, even if it means being rude or committing trespassing.

Does having a gym layered on my house enhance or detract from my home’s value?
— Boon Sheridan (@boonerang) July 10, 2016

Twitter user Boon Sheridan lives in a house that used to be a church. It's now a Pokémon Gym, which is a major nexus for gameplay. Players want access to his house. That's problematic, as he explains in a lengthy thread.

These cats figured it out, the bench in the park across the street is close enough to be ‘in’ the gym. pic.twitter.com/HAlVp84cd6
— Boon Sheridan (@boonerang) July 9, 2016

-via Amanda Brennan

With Ingress, the previous GPS game from the same company, locations could be removed that were on private property. Although there were also situations where inaccurate location required trespassing that an accurate location would not, and it was harder to fix that in some cases. On the plus side, bars with near by Ingress portals seemed happy to get random groups of "beer-gressers" coming by, just as some churches seem happy now to get more people walking in to play the new game.

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My kids noticed twice the usual number of people walking around the neighborhood last night. They were all playing Pokemon GO. There was one found in our church this morning.

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