The Plant That Can Sink Your Mortgage Ice Cream

Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica) has been stigmatised as ‘the plant that ate Britain’. It has been declared a ‘non-native’ ‘invasive’ plant that can allegedly penetrate through the foundations of your house. However, the definition of ‘non-native’ or ‘invasive’ is in itself a subjective non-scientific taxonomy and there is no rigorous evidence of Japanese knotweed being more damaging than other plants when it comes to growing through a crack on a concrete surface. Widespread scaremongering has effectively led to the deflation of property value and the refusal to grant mortgages to homeowners that have found knotweed on their premises. To critically question the construction of fear around the plant, this chapter is unpacked through the performative art installation named the Devaluing Property Real Estate Agency, which opened in London in 2016 to provide consultancy to customers about the agency of a plant to drop property value. After the consultation service, they were able to taste the Plant That Can Sink Your Mortgage Ice Cream.