Three flatmates were paying €1,300 a month — €450 each — for a flat that a partner of one of the victims describes as visibly unfit for habitation, as new testimony sheds light on the conditions inside the building that collapsed on Saturday, killing two people.
The witness, a young Greek Cypriot woman, says the three men had lived in the second-floor flat for more than two years despite serious problems with the building. The owner, she alleges, was completely indifferent to its condition.
She told philenews that the state of the flat and the rent had come up repeatedly in her conversations with her partner, Stanley, who told her the owner showed no interest. The previous summer, she says, the person managing the flat asked the three foreign nationals for a rent increase, citing renovations that were never carried out.
“They were paying €1,300 a month — €450 each — for a flat that was visibly unfit,” she said, adding that she had visited the flat herself and seen its poor condition with her own eyes. The building’s exterior showed its age and the danger it posed, she said, and the interior problems were equally apparent.
She also said a flat on the first floor was being rented out through an online platform to foreign nationals, including Ukrainians and Russians, at various times.
Stanley, 27, she said, was the only one of the three flatmates who consistently complained about the living conditions and the rent relative to the state of the flat. Disagreements among the three were frequent, she said, as one of the other flatmates was in contact with the building manager and did not share his concerns. “He told me he could not believe they were paying so much for something like this. He was exhausted by the whole situation,” she said.
Stanley wanted to leave the flat, she said, and had asked her to let him know if she found somewhere else.
Their last conversation was at 13:24 on Holy Saturday, minutes before the collapse. At around 13:10 he had told her he was back home after a run with a group of runners. They exchanged a few messages and his last one, at 13:24, was to say he was going to rest.
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