The family Mrs Barbara and Mr Eugeniusz has lived on Chopina Street in Bolesławiec since 1991. “We managed to live here without flooding for just one year,” the woman says. “My husband was in Germany in December. The thaw came, and within two days I carried 12 buckets of water out of the apartment.”
The apartment is small, with an area of approximately 29 square metres. There is a hole in the ceiling, and the floor in the only room is rotting. “An employee of the Social Housing Society visited us. He said that apartments after a flood look better than ours,” Mrs Barbara complains. “Water keeps pouring in at the same spot. Half the room cannot be used. Our son cannot sleep in the bed because plaster is falling from the ceiling. Our dog is beginning to suffer from rheumatism.”
Mrs Barbara says that she repeatedly intervened about renovating the apartment, both at the TBS and at the Municipal Housing Management Facility (MZGM; MZGM owns the apartment, while the Bolesławiec Social Housing Society manages the building). “I was sent from pillar to post,” she says. “Eventually I got fed up with making the rounds.”
In recent years, the family fell into debt (the couple point out that the apartment is currently about PLN 10,000 in arrears). “We received a housing allowance until October 2009, but it was stopped,” the woman explains. “I wanted the debt to be spread into instalments, but it turned out that we had to return some of the money we had received as part of that allowance.”
Because of the debt, MZGM terminated Mrs Barbara’s tenancy agreement in February of the previous year. The case was then referred to court. In September, the woman wrote to the city mayor. “I asked for the debt to be cancelled because this apartment has been flooded since 1992,” she stresses. “I also wrote that if the municipality continued to do nothing about the apartment, I would have to move with my family into a corridor.”
It worked. Shortly afterwards, repairs to the roof began. “There should be no more leaks,” says Piotr Woch, deputy director of the Municipal Housing Management Facility, in an interview with the “Istotne Informacje” website and newspaper.
However, this is not the end of the problems for the residents of Chopina Street. The debt has not been repaid, and eviction proceedings are under way. “It is easiest to throw someone out of their home. If they cancelled our debt and granted us the housing allowance again, we would somehow manage. They know perfectly well that the ceiling has been leaking here for a long time,” Mrs Barbara complains. “Poland is evidently going to the dogs,” Mr Eugeniusz says angrily.
“There were indeed instances of flooding in this apartment,” the deputy head of MZGM admits. “But they were not floods that would have prevented the family from living in the apartment. The damage was minor. The couple cannot apply for debt remission on that basis.”
We will return to the matter.
(ii information)