How can we evict 24 homes in 10 hours, some of which have been illegally occupied for more than 15 years? “It’s easier than a chalet, when you go there, you don’t open the door and you can’t enter the common areas, as is the case in apartments”, begins to explain Antonio Plana . He is the director of APD Security Iberia, the company which carried out this mass eviction on Tuesday in the Toledo town of Camarena.
“At first they start to be rude, they raise their voices at us and there is a kind of visual struggle while we keep our composure. But, when we facilitate access to supplies and they can make the corresponding cuts, after two or three hours the squatters are not stupid,” Plana continues. “They know that we are not going to move and that we will stay there for three days, as if we had to stay there for 35 days. When two or three start to leave, the others leave. This is what also happened in Camarena. “None of them were financially compensated” and that some had “lived there as squatters for 16 years”
The apartments are distributed in two buildings of twelve units each, which stand at the Arcicóllar intersection. The Plana company was hired by the new owner, who purchased the two blocks from a financial institution. Several apartments were occupied by members of the same family and the access doors to the garage and other common areas were blocked. “This way they could carry out their illegal maneuvers, because all the houses were illegally connected to water and electricity,” Plana describes.
His team managed to enter the common areas and a locksmith managed to open a door, allowing access to the garage to be unblocked. The operators of the electricity and water distribution companies were thus able to restore order. “They had come on other occasions to cut off the water and electricity, but the squatters did not let them or the Civil Guard enter,” says the director of APD Security Iberia.
Nine floors had already been vacated by midday and five were “by mutual agreement”, specifies Plana. They have between seven and fifteen days to vacate the apartments. During this time, a mother of several minors and a daughter suffering from serious illnesses will be relocated to another accommodation located in a neighboring building with the collaboration of the town hall. “We asked for support from the municipality, which collaborated a lot with us, and we reached an agreement with the property so that this family could live there with social rent,” explains Plana.
On nineteen floors, they have already installed anti-squatter doors and on the other five, they will be installed upon their departure within a maximum of two weeks.
