It took Daniel Solís years to recover his squatted apartment in a building in Esquivias, a town of about 5,500 inhabitants in the Toledo region of La Sagra. “It was always occupied illegally and they almost never paid me. At first they paid me for a few months, but I haven’t received a cent for four years,” he explained to ABC, at the foot of the building.
The case has since been before the courts. Tired of waiting, he turned to an eviction company, to which he will pay 4,000 euros to get his apartment back, on the first floor. “It’s a good investment after so many years of waiting,” Daniel says, resigned.
Since this morning, APD Security Iberia has been trying to negotiate with the squatters of this building, among whom are families with children. They have thirteen illegally occupied homes, in addition to most of the parking spaces.
At around 8:30 a.m., the staff of the eviction company were greeted with insults and some residents went to a nearby Civil Guard barracks to denounce them. “They threatened to beat us and called the Civil Guard, to whom we had already informed that we were here.”said Antonio Plana, from APD Security Iberia.
In this property, located at number 4 Monte Street, not everyone is living outside the law. Abdelhak has been living legally in the property with his family since 2014. This Moroccan is an exception with another neighbor and reports problems with the building’s electrical panel, now without power due to a fault with a fire risk. “There is an illegal and dangerous connection”said one of the two workers from a company who went to check it after the Civil Guard’s warning. “The neighbors have to call a professional to fix it,” he explained.
This is not the first time Abdelhak has had to pay for such a dumping. “It also affects me when they come to cut off the electricity to the squatters, because my house is left without electricity,” he complained, among other problems. In addition, you have to park your car on the free space of the garage, because there is often a car on your site, probably that of a squatter. “In addition to the fact that we don’t know who is entering or leaving the building, because there is a lot of movement.”Abdelhak lamented.
