On September 9th, a dozen people were evicted from their home on the road to Ses Salines. The eviction had been authorised by a judge due to repeated non-payment by the property’s owners. However, the tenants were not responsible for this non-payment, as they had paid their monthly rent, which was already excessive given the conditions in which they lived, to a woman who was a tenant of the property and sublet rooms and spaces. They all claim to be victims of a scam that has left them homeless and out of pocket by hundreds of euros in deposits and monthly payments. For this reason, they contacted Periódico de Ibiza y Formentera to explain their situation and try to find others affected.
A., the Spanish woman who has now been reported, was, according to the complainants, subletting the property in which she herself lived as a tenant. In other words, she rented a property and sublet rooms. She started by renting out rooms for €600 for single rooms and €900 for doubles, with separate bills. However, this income, obtained behind the property owner’s back, did not seem to be enough for her, as she also began renting out the garage without refurbishing it to a Uruguayan mother and her son.
According to those who were victims of her alleged scams, this woman spent short periods of time in the house, combined with long trips to Madrid, where she also had a home. During the time she was in the house, they explain, everything was more chaotic, as she was there with her son, barely ‘seven or eight years old’, with whom she shouted from early in the morning.
Threats
Dealing with this woman was ‘torture’ for the tenants of the house, who were subjected to constant threats and derogatory responses. ‘If you asked her for something as basic as a wardrobe or to fix something that had broken, she would tell you to go somewhere else and that she had people waiting to move into the flat,’ says one of those who experienced first-hand the terrible experience of renting a room in that house, which would end up becoming hell.
While receiving thousands of euros from these sublets – around €7,000 per month, according to the tenants’ rough estimates – A. did not pay many of the utility bills for the property, which meant that the tenants were often left without electricity, water or internet. When they complained about this, the woman responded that ‘the police had ordered the electricity to be cut off in that house because they thought there might be a marijuana plantation on the property’ and that, as a result, there were problems with the utilities, which is completely false, according to these testimonies. The fact is that the cuts occurred on a regular basis, and the only reason was that the woman, accused of fraud, did not pay the utility bills, which caused even more damage to the tenants.
The conditions
Although the accommodation conditions were more than strange from the outset, the situation, far from normalising over time, got worse and worse. The woman’s responses were hostile at all times, and she insisted on being paid monthly in cash and in person, and never gave them keys to the property, not to mention that the tenancy agreement was written by hand on a small piece of notebook paper, as this newspaper has been able to verify.
A. must have felt that she was not making enough money from renting at those prices, as she carried out work in the living room and dining room, installing modular plasterboard blocks to create new «rooms» that did not have the slightest bit of infrastructure, not even wardrobes. In this way, what were once the common areas of the house became nothing more than narrow corridors leading to the different rooms of the dwelling.
With these plasterboard structures, the number of people living in the place increased from the five permanent residents plus the alleged fraudster and her son to a dozen people on a continuous basis, twelve when these two people were there. This was not accompanied, as might be expected, by an improvement in the facilities: there was only one refrigerator, which did not have enough space for so many people, the kitchen was chaotic, and bathroom shifts were a constant source of complications. Living together became increasingly difficult.
Not only that, but the rent increased despite the conditions getting worse and worse. It went from €600 for a single room to €900 and from €1,200 for a double room to €1,500. They estimate that, in total, this woman could have pocketed around €100,000 at their expense over the course of the year.
When nothing seemed to be able to get any worse, the tenants received, completely by chance and coincidence, the news that the property was going to be evicted for non-payment. They thought they were paying the owner, but not only did they discover that this was not the case, but also that despite everything this person was charging them, she was not paying the monthly rent to the owner.
Upon learning of this news, they contacted the woman, who tried to assure them that the eviction had been appealed by her solicitor, that it would not be carried out, and that they should continue to pay as normal. Once again, it was all a lie, and during the last days of August, the woman, together with a friend of hers, collected her belongings from the flat so as not to leave anything there.
On 9 September, the police arrived at the property to carry out the eviction. The tenants did not resist in any way and spoke to the owner, who was present at the scene. According to their explanation, they «also felt threatened and afraid» of the woman, which is why they took so long to take legal action.
The testimonies
Now, a dozen people have been left literally on the street as a result of this woman’s practices and have had to fend for themselves. People like A. – the same initial as the alleged fraudster, but a different person, who prefers not to give their full name for fear of reprisals – who arrived at the property through a Telegram advert with their best friend, I., last October, and who stayed in the property almost until the date of eviction. He was relatively fortunate to find a flat through a property website and was able to move elsewhere.
This was not the case for Diego, who arrived in May to find one of those plasterboard structures in the middle of the living room. Although acquaintances on the island warned him about the woman’s allegedly mafia-like behaviour, he did not believe them until the moment of eviction. He is now living on a sofa lent to him by a woman because he has been left homeless and without the deposit and monthly rent he had already paid.
Lukas, for his part, had moved into the flat in June and was paying €1,200 for a double room. According to him, it was they themselves who had to show the flat to new tenants, under threat from the owner. Following the eviction, he is also living at a friend’s house until he can move into the new flat he is going to rent.
If you wish to report any situation related to this issue or anything else happening in Ibiza, you can call 971 190 543 or send an email to: redaccion@periodicodeibiza.es