Joshua Parfitt
ANOTHER two families have fled an urbanisation that descended into ‘hell’ after squatters began a ‘violent coup d’etat’ five years ago.
A retired German couple and a Spanish family have had enough of living in the Mirador Monte Pedrera estate, in Denia, which has become a ‘hellhole’ for legal residents.
As reported in our last issue, only 11 of 64 apartments were sold in 2007 when Spain sunk into recession.
The rest remained empty and just two of the legally-owned apartments are now inhabited all year-round, after the Germans and Spanish also moved out.
“The squatters want us out, plain and simple,” British expat Linda, who has owned a penthouse apartment with her partner Arnene since 2007, told the Olive Press.
“They want all the owners out so they can completely rule the kingdom.”
The latest departures come just days after Linda, 61, was in court after she was punched in the gut and the eye by a female squatter.
It came after she had asked the neighbour to turn down a ‘blaring karaoke system’.
She and Arnene, 72, sleep with the ‘burglar alarm on’ and have barricaded themselves in on their fourth-floor apartment as they live with daily death threats and abuse.
The pressure was too much however, for a young Spaniard, who told the Olive Press they were leaving after his wife, who is eight-months pregnant, was hospitalised due to stress-related complications.
“I wanted to raise my family in this beautiful place like this, but I can’t risk my wife’s life,” he explained.
The nightmare began five years ago when a 62-year-old ‘gypsy’ patriarch broke in with his 11 children and grandchildren.
His wider family have now taken over 24 apartments which they sublet out to ‘drug addicts’.
The apartments are illegally connected to water and electricity, yet police have only intervened on one occasion when a man threatened to kill Linda with a hammer in front of an officer last year.
“It’s horrendous. They can steal from us, threaten us and abuse us, and the law is not on our side until one of us gets hurt,” Linda said.
“But they won’t get us out, because the Brits never give up. Not when we’ve sunk every penny into our €270,000 apartment and have nowhere else to go.”
Some unoccupied apartments have been bricked up, but that does not stop the squatters 
A door where a squatter failed to break in 
Squatters have broken the locks to the development’s staircases
A legal representative for Jepsa, who maintain the urbanisation, told the Olive Press: “The law forbids the illegal squatting of properties and use of water and electricity, but nothing is being done.
“Squatters have even broken into British-owned homes when the owners are on a week’s holiday, and still no-one has kicked them out.
“We have a beautiful country, which is loved by people around the world, but the law does not function as it should.”
