Gungulung Resident’s House Dismantled by Thieves
A mother of four is tonight appealing for help after thieves stole her roofing, bathroom and stairs from her house over the past few weeks. Sasaa Ford says that she has been living in an elevated structure in Gungulung for more than five years. However, in the past few weeks she’s been renting because a portion of her floor was collapsing and during that time thieves began dismantling her house. Hipolito Novelo reports.
Hipolito Novelo, Reporting
Her roof is gone. Her entire bathroom is gone. The stairs to her house is also gone. They’re all gone in a matter of a few weeks and, during those weeks, thirty-six-year-old Sasaa Ford has grown frustrated and worried. Her house, an elevated two-room structure, is located in the Gungulung area of Belize City. Like most of the residents in the area, Ford has been a squatter for years. She built her own house and now she is watching it being stripped, board by board and zinc by zinc.
Sasaa Ford
Sasaa Ford, Owner of House
“I live at Gungulung and I have my house, a two bedroom house and I do not know who but I will just send the message in general, because they really ripped my heart out. They damaged all of my house in my house. They took off my roof knowing that when you take off the roof, rain comes and everything will get damage in. they throw my stuff. My house look bad,. It is in a bad state. The bathroom, the whole bathroom with the zinc. All the zinc, the sink, the sewerage.The bathroom.The whole entire bathroom. More than half of the roof they went with and the syltex they ripped down.”
According to Ford, she had been renting elsewhere because a portion of the floor was collapsing. And it was during that time, that the thieves took the opportunity to steal her property.
Sasaa Ford
“So I left the house, but I don’t have anywhere else to stay. I have four children. And for them to do me something like this and I work hard for everything that I have. I don’t beg nobody. I don’t thief anyone and everybody who knows me know that I have a heart. They know that I am a very kindhearted person. So for these people back here do me things like this, I think it is totally wrong and I will speak out now because I don’t care which one of them will kill me or hurt me or burn the rest of my house because I am not afraid for them. I just want to make them know what they did is wrong and they need to stop to do this because the people back here in Gungulung, all what the boys they do is run around and steal people’s property, stuff. You can’t see because of the bush but someone actually build a house on my property. Yes I don’t have any paper work for it. Everybody is squatting. But you could see a house here, why squat on my land?”
Ford, a Pickstock voter, is calling on her area representative to help her. She fears that she’ll spend Christmas with literally no roof over her and her children’s head.
Sasaa Ford
“I won’t even have a Christmas. They will have now, and I will not have any because they took my stuff to use to make sure that they have a roof over their head. Now I don’t have a roof over my head. And I don’t know what I will. So I am pleading with Mister Mahler, Anthony Mahler. I am asking you to please help me now with a house. Because if you can see, the whole roof is gone. I don’t have anybody to even put a zinc for me in this house.”
Ford called police. The officers visited the scene. She made a report at the Raccoon Street Police Station, but says that based on the treatment she received and what she was told, the police might not take her report seriously.
Reporting for News Five, I am Hipolito Novelo.
