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Fecal waste, damp walls, rust and sunken floors: this was the state in which the owner of the property, where the La Coracha care home in Malaga city was located, found her villa. The business was closed by the Junta de Andalucía for displaying conditions that saw it labelled as the "residence of horrors". As a result, the managers of La Coracha, who are planning on opening another facility in Torremolinos on the Costa del Sol, are facing legal proceedings for possible crime of damage.
Amelia is the granddaughter of an elderly man, now deceased, who was a resident of La Coracha in 2022. "He stayed there for a month and a half, which is how long it took me to find a place for him in another home and get him out of there," she said.
According to Amalia, her grandfather was reduced to a state of filth and illness practically from the second day. "I brought him clean clothes, which disappeared. They kept putting the same dirty clothes on him for several days," Amelia said. "My grandfather said that the food was very bad. He went in under his own steam and after four days he needed a walker."
When she got him out of there, Amelia took her grandfather to the Hospital Clínico, where he was diagnosed with scabies. "He caught it there. The conditions were unhealthy, everything was very dirty, the workers were always smoking and the old people were alone all day. A horror."
Although it is not possible to determine when the deterioration of care at the residence took place, nor is it possible to verify Amelia's account, her description closely resembles the statement which the owner of the property, where La Coracha was established, issued to the court.
According to the complaint, the two sisters who owned the business rented the villa, located in Malaga city's Cerrado de Calderón neighbourhood, in 2018 with the intention of converting it into a private care home, without subsidies from the regional government.
The rental price amounted to 5,500 euros per month. The proprietor stated in the complaint filed that the two sisters owed her 84,458 euros of rent. She had asked them to leave the site due to payments not being made.
According to her complaint, the tenants demanded money to leave and warned her that, if she did not agree to their demands, they would destroy the property. Not only was she unable to pay them, but she had even stopped paying the mortgage on the property due to the non-payment of rent.
The inspection department of the Social Services of the Malaga delegation visited the residence. Despite 30 elderly people still living there, the home was in a state of severe insalubrity. Experts detected an advanced level of lack of hygiene.
The Junta ordered the closure of the residence, although the procedure could not take immediate effect, as it first had to find new homes for the residents.
In the meantime, the owner was still trying to recover her property, which the tenants refused to return to her. She asked a friend of hers - a private detective - to carry out surveillance in the area. He discovered that the two sisters were making several trips out to take belongings out of the house.
On 28 March, the villa owner received a call informing her that the access gate to the house was open and that there was no one on the property. Faced with the risk of someone squatting, she went there and found the lock broken and the door tied with a rope.
"The sight we encountered was lamentable, simply horrible. The property was in a state of desolation," said the owner. The woman listed the damage as follows: "Broken drawers, blinds, furniture, sanitary appliances, kitchen furniture, tiled and parquet floors, doors, electrical items; destruction and abandonment of the garden and swimming pool; theft of the locking mechanisms of all the doors, general dirt affecting the whole house; walls covered in excrements and mould; sunken floors, broken railings and mattresses with urine stains on them."
The owner has made an extensive photographic report of the former residence to demonstrate the state in which the property was returned to her. In her complaint, she has also attached images of the state in which she handed it over to show the before and after.
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