The Housing Department of the Government of the Balearic Islands has imposed a fine of two million euros on the company owned by a local police officer in Palma that manages the rental of 68 storage rooms and rooms as housing without the minimum legal conditions of habitability.
These are rooms located in buildings in three different neighborhoods of the Balearic capital that have, in some cases, less than 15 square meters, without natural light, without ventilation and with a poor electrical system.
It is the largest sanction for the exploitation of substandard housing imposed on the islands and quadruples the total amount of all sanctions previously issued for this type of infractions.
The police officer was arrested for the marketing of these substandard housing last November and was released, awaiting trial, accused of alleged crimes of fraud, against moral integrity and of favoring irregular immigration.
One of the buildings that houses the substandard housing is located on Joan Miró Avenue in Palma, in the Gomila neighborhood.
It is a six-story building, in whose basements and basements the local police had set up a network with more than 30 substandard homes, only five of them outside and with access to natural ventilation.
After going down some stairs, in the narrow corridors dotted with clotheslines with hanging clothes, each metal storage room door is identified with a hand-painted number.
Pilar lives in number 5, who prefers not to give her last name, but she agrees to show the inside of her house.
It is a small room of about 15 square meters that she has made the most of, with several towers of boxes and bags with all her belongings packed in case she has to leave.
In one corner, there is a piece of furniture with two small electric burners and a refrigerator, which share space with a table, the bed and a washing machine.
“In the bathroom they made a mess, the humidity from the shower spread all over the floor,” he says, showing the tiny bathroom.
The room does not have any type of natural ventilation and only has a small window that overlooks the storage hallway.
Pilar, in the basement she rents on Joan Miró Avenue in Palma.LB
Pilar has been living in this room for three years and pays a rent of 410 euros per month, to which she has to add electricity costs.
“There are months when we pay 60 or 70 euros for electricity, in January it was 90. For every appliance you see in the room, the electricity goes up,” complains Pilar, who explains that the owner's
modus operandi
to collect money involves meeting the tenants. of the storage rooms so that they deliver the monthly payment in hand, without returning any type of receipt in exchange "so that there is no evidence that we are paying those amounts of money."
Since the policeman's arrest, the neighbors have been restless because they do not know what will happen to their future and when they will have to leave their rooms.
For Pilar, the scenario of leaving is a problem because “there are no apartments to rent” and she believes that she and other tenants will end up “living on the street.”
“It's normal that I want to leave the room, I'm tired of cockroaches, of everything.
But we now have a problem because if they kick us out we have nowhere to go, I sleep with the uneasiness that we don't know what is going to happen here.”
Dodging the clotheslines in the winding blue-tiled hallway, one of the storage room doors is completely boarded up.
Pilar explains that, two months ago, the tenant who had lived there for years died of natural causes and it was the neighbors who noticed it because of the smell.
The court ordered the door to be boarded up after the body was removed to avoid problems.
In another area of the basement, in front of the space where the neighbors have installed a couple of washing machines and the septic tank, R., a Cuban woman who lives alone and prefers not to offer more information, lives in a tiny room.
Her storage room does not measure more than 10 square meters, in which she has the bed, a refrigerator, a small plug-in ceramic hob and a bathroom that hardly a person can fit into.
He shows a rental contract in which the monthly price of 350 euros, the number of his storage room and the price of the deposit, 150 euros, are noted in pen.
The contract, which bears the seal of the company owned by the local police officer, states that the tenant must be responsible for the maintenance and repairs of the room, including light bulbs and lights.
“The agreed rent includes 60 kW, with the tenant being responsible for paying the remaining consumption,” the document states.
R. explains that every month the policeman looks at the individual electricity consumption meter installed in the room and charges him the amount he considers appropriate, ranging from 60 euros to 90 euros in the month of January, for exceeding that limit.
The blackouts, he says, are continuous.
“He enters the room and for each appliance he sees, he increases the amount,” says R., who assures that at no time does he provide invoices that justify the amounts.
The woman also expresses her concern about her situation and that of her neighbors after the sanction imposed by the Housing Department.
Pilar's 'kitchen': a piece of furniture with two small electric stoves and a refrigerator, which share space with a table, the bed and a washing machine.LB
“We have not received any eviction order, but if they told us, where would we go?
"I pay 350 euros plus the current, which is what he wants," says R. Both she and Pilar and other neighbors have stopped paying the police officer since it emerged that he had been arrested for fraud, against moral integrity and other crimes for the commercialization of storage rooms.
“For two months he has sent another person to collect or summoned people to a bar to pay them,” says Pilar.
In another of the rooms lives a woman of Colombian origin, who prefers to remain anonymous because she is in an irregular situation, with her husband and her two minor children, one of them barely one year old.
Her storage room is one of the largest and they have been able to install a double bed and a bunk bed, as well as a table and some furniture.
The space is spotless and well lit, even though it doesn't have any windows.
The woman says that they entered the storage room two months ago and the owner arrived with the police when they had only been installed four days.
“He came with the police, who looked at everything, saw the refrigerator full and everything organized and said that they couldn't kick us out because it seemed like we had been living there for a long time.
He left and we haven't seen him again,” he says.
He explains that they are going to stay in the cabin until they are kicked out or find a better option, although he is pessimistic about their personal situation and that of the housing market on the island.
During the tour of the basement, other neighbors come to explain their situation and the fear they have of having to leave the only place that, they say, they can afford today.
The sanction imposed on the local police officer, and which was notified to him in mid-January, contemplates a period of one month to file an appeal for reconsideration, which the agent has not yet filed, and two months to file a contentious-administrative appeal.
The Balearic Housing Law contemplates penalties of between 30,001 euros and 90,000 euros for very serious infractions such as the one attributed to the owner of these 68 substandard homes and in this case the minimum established in the regulations has been imposed.
The Housing Department explains that the resolution of the sanction requires the police officer to cease the conduct that has been the subject of the fine, which could lead to the eviction of the tenants in the future.
One of the corridors in the basement of this building, located on Joan Miró Avenue in Palma, in the Gomila neighborhood.LB
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