Screaming and threatening while brandishing a machete or holding a shotgun. Driving at full speed on narrow roads and in a car without insurance, false complaints, cockfighting and confrontations with the elderly. These are some of the behaviors and attacks reported by residents of the Moreres de Borriol street neighborhood who suffered from a couple of squatters.
“We are afraid to go out on the street”, “it is a nightmare” and “we feel helpless” are some of the phrases that sum up the feeling of this neighborhood since this summer when a young A couple, with a minor child, squatted in an empty house in the old town of Borriol. The problem, the neighbors point out, is not that the family settled without permission – “which, in the end, is the least thing,” they say – but the behavior of the newly arrived adults.
They are a young couple (as they know, in their early twenties) who claim to be involved in “constant fights” with other neighbors. About him, they say that “he went into the street shouting, threatening to burn down all our houses, sometimes with a knife or a machete, other times he came out with a gun or a rifle and said he will kill us.” Regarding the woman, on the other hand, they claimed that “she came to harm herself to invent false accusations against us.”
Some scenes that those affected say they recorded on videos and photos. Some have even installed security cameras in their homes since the couple’s arrival, while there are other people who no longer leave their homes “without pepper spray in hand.” The evidence they collected was sent to the security forces and the Court along with the respective complaints.
In this sense, the plaintiffs have up to three requests, one of which is to the owner of the house to recover the property, “but everything is very slow and at the moment no one is doing anything,” they lamented, “despite the fact that we have “We also know that the young man has a long criminal history that includes time in prison,” they added.
But verbal threats and displays of knives and weapons are not the only things the residents of central Borriol have endured. Added to these situations is “driving at full speed” in his car through the narrow streets of the old town. A car that “we know was driving without insurance,” they criticized, and that was “continually parked improperly, blocking access to emergency vehicles when they are needed.” In addition to this road, “no one else parks, we are afraid that something will be done to our cars.”
Inside the house they also admitted that there were “rooster fights”. Regarding the couple’s livelihood, they confirmed that they did not hide that “they dedicate themselves to theft, they talk about it loudly and we all can hear it.”
In their eagerness to find a solution to this “hell”, the neighborhood also discovered that the house on Moreres Street was not the first in Borriol that the family squatted on. “They took advantage of the fact that the owner, an old woman, left the house to some relatives and came claiming to be the heirs,” reported neighbors who, later, knew- also that “this is the fourth house that they have squatted. and currently, In fact, they still have another squat house in this town that they go to and go to.
Besides contacting the owners and reporting the incidents, the neighbors are also asking for support from the City Council. However, after meeting on several occasions with the mayor of Borriol, Hèctor Ramos, they consider that the local Administration “is not doing enough” to alleviate the situation.
A vehemently denied by the first mayor. Ramos, who claimed to “completely understand” the turmoil in the neighborhood, assured that “from the City Council we have done and are doing everything possible” in this regard. In addition, as the head of the council, the mayor wants to emphasize that this is “a dangerous matter involving a minor” and, moreover, “it is already in the hands of a you be the judge.”
