In February last year, the Balearic housing ministry imposed a fine of just over two million euros on a company that was renting out substandard homes in Palma's Gomila area. In November 2023, a Palma police officer had been arrested by the National Police. He was running the company. He still is. The fine has been appealed and basement storage rooms that were converted illegally and which have no habitability certifications are still being rented out.
At a property on Joan Miró, there are around thirty of these homes. Some tenants say the owner is attempting to evict them. They claim to have been without water for a week and that someone went to cut off the electricity on Friday.
The evictions don't appear to be as a consequence of the housing ministry's intervention. After the news broke of the police officer's arrest, some of the tenants went on rent strike. There are at least six proceedings for eviction because of non-payment of rent.
One of those affected is 62-year-old Aránzazu. She has lived in a room measuring just some eight square meters for five years. She can't understand how a court can examine her case and protect the owner. On Tuesday, the matter came to the attention of a group that seeks to prevent evictions. Its spokesperson, Joan Segura, says that if they had intervened earlier, they could have tried to suspend the eviction process, but it had gone too far.
"Aránzazu found herself entangled in a legal maze she didn't understand and ratified an agreement against her own interests." She doesn't want to leave the room because she has nowhere else to go, but she signed a contract to voluntarily leave the property in exchange for forgiveness of her debt, approximately €4,000.
Before the rent strike, Aránzazu was paying €400 a month, a rent that left her with barely 200 euros to survive the entire month on what she receives as the minimum living wage. "My contract stated 340 euros, but I gave him 400 to cover the electricity." But he demanded exorbitant amounts for electricity. "He didn't show any paperwork; I've never seen a bill." Other tenants confirm that he used this pretext in systematically inflating payments due.
Despite the arrest and the fine, residents say that new contracts for rent continue to be signed. One elderly tenant died recently. Two days later, and the room had been rented out to someone else. Residents reckon there are around ten children living in these rooms without natural light and ventilation, some of them very young.