Residents forced to shut community pool on Costa del Sol after squatters invite family and friends to swim

Manilva, a municipality on the western strip of the Costa del Sol, has been experiencing some major problems with people squatting in one of its residential developments, namely the Royal Manilva. According to the residents who live there legally, approximately 30 of the 90 dwellings have been squatted, in some cases for about four years.

As reported by El Confidencial, the legal owners said it started in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and that the "call effect" meant attempts to enter empty homes without the law's authorisation have not stopped since then.

In addition to the insecurity caused by having people living illegally in your own community, recently there was a situation that was the straw that broke the camel's back in this residential development. The property owners have a swimming pool in their grounds, which had been closed for some years for economic reasons. This year, they decided to invest in it in order to open it and enjoy it in summer. But this quickly turned ugly due to the squatters living in the same urbanisation.

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"The day after it was in a perfect condition for bathing, the swimming pool was filled with squatters and people from outside the development who had been invited. We have videos in which you can see 20 or 30 children from outside, women bathing fully dressed, with the niqab," said the legal residents, according to El Confidencial.

But the situation got worse: "They broke the security locks on the gates and, when we put chains to close them, they ripped down the fence to get underneath," which meant that, a week later, the residents had to close the swimming pool.

The residents then went to the authorities but, at first, they received no attention: "When we saw all the people in the water, we called the Local Police. They told us that they couldn't come out because they were dealing with a fire. But they also told us that it was a private security problem that they couldn't get involved with. And they blamed us for the fact that people were sneaking in because the locks and fences were broken," a resident told El Confidencial.

Some time later, in June, the residents also wanted to report the danger of a minor or any other person drowning in the water due to the pool being shut and no lifeguards being present, asking police for explanations as to why no officers were attending.

With a new complaint in August, and the knowledge of violent altercations and investigation for drug trafficking, added to a possible shooting incident between squatters and "a clan", according to local residents, Guardia Civil and Local Police officers launched an operation that allowed the recovery of some of the squatted houses in Royal Manilva.

This was in response to an injunction from the courts in Estepona. A total of 30 properties in the residential development were vacated, but the operation has not been fully completed. According to media sources, most of the squatters agreed to leave the houses voluntarily, so the evictions were carried out without incident. The only exception was the presence of an aggressive dog and a woman who claimed to live with four minors. Her case was referred to the social services department of the Junta de Andalucía.