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Elderly
women in village fight
Bendigo Advertiser Wednesday, 16 April 2003 |
 BOXED
IN: Elaine Holt and Mavis Towers feel they are not welcome at their units.
Australia - TWO
frail, elderly women are locked in a bitter battle with the retirement
village they have lived in for 16 years.
The feud has made the
women's health deteriorate and has almost forced them out of their homes.
Mavis Towers, 89, and
Elaine Holt, 80, have suffered sleepless nights and countless hours of
stress since they learned their units would be destroyed to make way for
an extension to the Alawara Retirement Homes hostel.
Mrs Towers and Mrs Holt
paid $6000 to enter the village 16 years ago and have since made
fortnightly rental payments from their pensions.
In return, the women were
guaranteed a secure tenure until they no longer needed their units.
They lived happily in the
same units for almost 16 years until being told two days before the
village announced a redevelopment to make way for 15 new beds, that their
units would be demolished.
Mrs Towers and Mrs Holt
were offered units elsewhere in the village, but they were unsuitable
because of their proximity to High Street, traffic entering and leaving
the village and a vacant block.
``I started near High
Street but only stayed in that unit for a few months because of the noise
of the traffic,'' Mrs Towers said.
``Seventeen years later,
they're trying to put me back there. It's not safe next to a vacant
block.''The women refused to move and claim they will now be ``boxed in''
by the hostel.
Two units neighbouring Mrs
Towers' home have already been gutted to make way for the redevelopment
and their homes will be within three metres of the new building.
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