Police across Finland say there has been a noticeable increase in the number of young people breaking into empty buildings.
The phenomenon is apparently being driven by a trend on the social media platform TikTok, police said in a statement, where people are encouraged to share videos of themselves inside disused or derelict properties.
"In Mikkeli alone, there are several reports of break-ins every week," Juha-Pekka Huttunen of the Eastern Finland Police Department said in a press release.
While police have always had to deal with reports of break-ins, Huttunen noted that the number of incidents has increased significantly — both in Eastern Finland and on a national level — during the past spring.
According to Huttunen, buildings have always been broken into, but in the spring, the number of reports increased both in Eastern Finland and nationally.
In Oulu, for example, local newspaper Kaleva reported earlier this week that there have been numerous reports of trespassing on the grounds of a former spa hotel, called Eden, over the past three months.
Tero Väyrynen of the Oulu Police Department confirmed to Yle that about a dozen suspected break-ins to the disused hotel, which closed in 2021, have been filed with the department in recent weeks.
"The age range of the perpetrators has been between 12 and 20 years old. It seems like a social media challenge, so it's about urban exploring, or so-called 'urbex'. Videos shared on social media have this urbex tag," Väyrynen said.
He added that the department advises parents in the city to discuss the 'urbex' trend with their children, and encourage them not to participate.
"Breaking into a closed space is a crime, an act of vandalism. It is also possible to injure yourself in the premises, even if no other damage is caused," Väyrynen said.
Sergeant Juha-Pekka Huttunen in Mikkeli noted that, even though the age of criminal responsibility in Finland is 15, children under that age — or their families — would still be financially liable for any damage they might cause to a property.
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