Golda Lee-Bruce
Residents of Marcano Quarry Lands HDC apartments, in East Port-of-Spain, are paying to live in squalor.
Since a fire destroyed parts of the building ten years ago, conditions have gone from bad to worse.
Residents say homes are infested with rats and snakes, they go without water for months and electricity only comes through certain outlets.
Recently residents began to discover water flowing through their electrical fixtures.
Violet Bowman, 81, has lived in the apartments for 40 years.
She is one of the several senior citizens living at Marcano Quarry, also known as Canada. Bowen takes care of her disabled son.
“I feel neglected. As a senior citizen nothing has been done for us, they never even look into us here,” she told Guardian Media as she showed us her small, dark apartment.
Inside, wires hang from the panel box and across the room, evidence of Bowman’s attempts to remedy her own electrical issues.
Four floors above lives 71-year-old Yvette Sandy. Sandy’s son has fashioned a water collection system that allows her to use rainwater for everyday tasks.
“In the night when yuh in the toilet, if yuh see how the rat does be coming down from the roof, if yuh eh duck, they jumping on yuh, yuh know,” she said.
When Guardian Media visited yesterday, the stench of raw sewage was unbearable. Residents say it runs through the compound whenever there is rain. There are 26 people living at the apartments, among that number are at least 10 children.
There are cracks in the walls, piles of garbage in puddles of murky water and even bullet holes in the windows.
There have been three murders at the Canada apartments site since the start of the year.
In one incident a resident was killed as he slept, by gunmen who stormed into his home.
“Anything could happen, anyone of us could dead, every morning we have to call one another to see who alive,” says resident Jeffrey Hamilton Scott.
Scott and another resident said since gang violence erupted in the area last year, Canada is the only HDC development in the area not benefiting from the police presence. They say the police were told that the buildings are condemned.
In response to the resident's complaints, the Housing Minister Randall Mitchell confirmed the squalid conditions at Marcano Quarry.
In a message to Guardian Media, he said, “the issue as I understand it, is that alternative accommodation is yet to be identified for the remaining 26 persons. The conditions are confirmed deplorable.”
He is also vowing to give the matter greater attention.