5 children and their parents are homeless after a court ordered that the house they've been living in for the past 13 years be torn down. Juan Bardalez today called us the site of what used to be their home at mile 6 on the Northern Highway. As we found out they were there on the graces of a woman who claimed to be the owner, but now it looks like someone else actually owns the property and that someone had it torn down, leaving this family to live in the rubble. Here's their story.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
This bunk bed under the ficus tree is where Reymunda Mendoza her husband Juan Bardalez and their five children slept last night. They are here because yesterday evening heavy equipment rolled into the place they've called home for the past 13 years and simply tore it down.
Reymunda Mendoza, Homeless
"They started to take out the things that's the police and other persons
who came. When I noticed they took out everything and I went to the other side and began to cry."
In May of last year the Honduran couple received this letter from someone who told them they needed to remove themselves from the premises before 11 of the morning of June 15th of 2006, it is signed by someone claiming to act on behalf of a third party. And while it seems like a legal document it is not clear what authority it carries.
So, the family continued living in the house and on January 5th of this year they received another letter, this one a court order from the Municipal Court in Belize in which it says that the house is to be demolished by February 8th. And that's what happened yesterday evening and now the family is left to face the elements.
Juan Bardalez, Homeless
Thirteen years of being here nobody bothered us. He as the owner should have told us that he was going to tear down the house or tell us to take the house or something but he only sent for it to be torn down. We're on the street As I've told you let god have mercy on us because we have nowhere to stay. We don't even have money to pay rent or anything so we have to stay and see what God says."
And it will have to be what god says because they've had no communication with the person who left them in the house, known to them only as one Gloria from Chicago - and she did that as far back as in 1998.
That's very little to go on and now they have no way of contacting the person they believe to be the real owner and the only person who may have been able to save them form what now appears inevitable.
We understand from attorneys involved in the matter that the house and property were indeed being bought by a woman living in the U.S. But that woman, presumably the Gloria they speak of, died before the purchase was finalized and the ownership reverted to the previous owners who hold title to the property since it was never transferred.
