FOR TWO YEARS, Linda Mayers has been trying to get the National Housing Corporation (NHC) to solve a land dispute between her and a neighbour who is a squatter.
Mayers, who resides at Clarke’s Avenue, Bayland, St Michael, attempted to erect a galvanised fence around her home last year, but charged that her neighbour, Juanita Forde, tried to prevent her from doing so by claiming that the portion of land belonged to her.
Pointing out that she inherited the property from her mother, Mayers said a plot of the area which she obtained from the Town and Country Planning Department indicated her lot and a canal south of her land with an open area, which she said was owned by the NHC.
She explained that no houses were supposed to be on that spot since the area was a watercourse, but she said three squatters, including Forde, had been living there for many years with the permission of the NHC.
“The female squatter has constantly been attacking myself and all the adult members of my household as well as some of the visitors to my home verbally,” Mayers said. “She has laid claim to the land between my paling and the canal, even though she lives over the other side of the canal.”
Mayers added that an official at the NHC also informed her that they were aware that the three people were squatting but she was told to leave them alone.
The owner said that on two occasions an official from the NHC turned up at her home and forbade her from erecting the fence until the NHC sent a surveyor.
The situation escalated two weeks ago, when according to Mayers, the man she hired to erect the fence was verbally attacked and threatened and she was forced to summon the police and NHC once again.
This time she said the officer who came informed her that NHC was not allowed to survey private land.
While Mayers has finally erected her fence, she said that she should not have had to go through all of that stress with a squatter. She pointed out that Forde had also erected a rope across the front of the land.
“My big question is why is it that Housing is entertaining her calls about my paling . . . but she is squatting on so much of their land and nothing is being done about moving her.”
Mayers said every time it rained the entire area was usually flooded and she believes it is because the watercourse is being blocked.
When contacted, Forde admitted that she was squatting but said the NHC was aware that she and two others were living on the land.
“The land belongs to the NHC and the NHC knows we are here,” Forde said. ‘The land is not mine. I never claimed the land. What I said to Linda was she know the situation out here; that this whole canal does flood and the water does be all around my house.”
The mother of five pointed out that the water was usually knee-high forcing her to use a ladder to get from her house to her neighbour’s house.
“We were most concerned that when she put up the fence that it would push the water more towards us and it would get inside the houses,” Forde said.
She added that she and one of the other squatters were the ones who cleared the canal of debris because the Drainage Unit no longer cleaned it as often as before.
“I just want to live with my children and be comfortable just like her and her family,” Forde said.
We could not obtain a response from NHC’s general manager Lanette Napoleon because she is on leave.
