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Rundown house gives Fujairah family jitters

FUJAIRAH — An Emirati family living in a dilapidated house is having sleepless nights. They cannot sleep outside as the summer heat has set in and they are afraid of sleeping inside the house fearing that the ceiling will cave in.

Ali Khamis Saeed Al Yamahi’s widow, two sons and two daughters were sleeping in the yard of their house till recently. But with the night temperatures also going up steadily, this is no longer an option. The impending fear of cement blocks falling on them is like a Damocles sword over their heads.

The family called a contractor to carry out repairs in the house but this was of no avail as cement blocks began to fall again after a short time.

Adding to their woes, the contractor didn’t receive his money and threatened to take them to court to get his entitlements. But with a meagre monthly income of Dh3,000, they cannot afford to pay the contractor.

Azeeba Ali Khuzam, widow of Ali Khamis, said that her husband passed away in 1998. He had unsuccessfully applied to the local municipality for a house. But it was allotted to another family. This family, however, did not stay here for long and moved to a new residence. “’We and my four children then moved to this house which was built by the late Shaikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum at Shabiat Rashid,” she said.

“I took delivery of the house from the Municipality after some maintenance work. I agreed to reside in it in the hope that the civic body would give us a new house in some new residential complexes built by the municipality in different parts of the Emirate,” she explained. According to her, after several months around the start of winter, she was shocked to observe the effect of rain waters on the ceiling and worn out electricity connection which ultimately led to disconnection of power supply.

“The ceiling had become completely unsafe as pieces of cement began to fall down from time to time ... the pillars also followed suit, forcing me to asking for maintenance worth Dh53,000 over the last two years. Now I am indebted to the contractor who has threatened to take me to court,” she said.

“My main problem is I have no money to pay for the contractor and I could face imprisonment ... my monthly income is Dh3,000 (Dh2,000 is my husband’s pension and Dh1,000 in social assistance).