A resident of Arrecife recovered her home in the La Vega neighborhood this Wednesday after three years of legal proceedings to be able to evict the tenants who occupied it in 2021. "I have cried oceans, I am taking diazepam to be able to sleep," laments Alicia García in front of the door of her home for which she has been fighting for a long time.
The clock read 12:05 a.m. this Wednesday when workers from the Judicial Secretariat arrived at Ortega y Gasset Street. A court in Arrecife had already signed the order to evict a young couple who lived with their baby in the house without paying the rent this Wednesday morning.
Back in 2021, Alicia García suffered a Temporary Employment Regulation File as a result of the pandemic and decided to enable and rent the ground floor of her home to be able to meet mortgage expenses. As she told La Voz, she rented it to a woman in her seventies for 450 euros, with expenses included. At first everything was fine, but her tenant only paid the rent for four months, and on the fifth she stopped giving her the money.
"The grandmother left, but before leaving she left me her grandson with the pregnant couple," says the owner of the property. "I've been dealing with this for almost three years, when they came to evict the grandmother, since she was no longer there, I had to start the whole process again to direct it to the people who were there now," continues Alicia García.
In the midst of this struggle to recover her property, she has come across the fact that the Arrecife City Council allegedly registered the tenants in her home "with a false contract. They forged my signature and the contract didn't even have my ID, just my name," she says.
The baby, who is now about two years old, lived with her parents in the house until 9:30 a.m. this Wednesday, when they decided to leave before the eviction was carried out.
All this time, this citizen has been living on the upper floor, one above her squatters. Thus, she assures that she has had to face water and electricity bills for more than 300 euros and that, on one occasion, they even tried to sell her washing machine.
She has now been able to enter and check the condition of her home, which is suffering from a lack of paint and has a cockroach infestation. "We put everything that works in the living room and throw everything else away," a friend pointed out to her minutes after recovering the property.
Alicia García asks for legal certainty for owners who decide to rent their homes, so they don't have to face lengthy legal processes to recover them.
