Squatters 'wrecking beach villa' and 'lighting fires'

Tourists 'stare as though it were an attraction' and authorities have taken no action in 18 months, complain neighbours on Gandia beach

SQUATTERS have left a Gandia beach villa in such a disgusting state that visitors 'stop and photograph it as though it were a tourist attraction', residents have complained.

And the occupants are still in situ, because the council has not taken any action to remove them in over 18 months.

They have covered the outer walls with graffiti – scrawls, not pictures – leave rubbish piling up (with now a year and a half's worth of débris, junk and litter scattered around the courtyard), and light fires day and night on the terrace without taking any precautions.

The villa – one of the very old-style beach houses, cubeshaped with square concrete pillars and still with its 1970s' patterned tiles – is on one of the most heavily-frequented streets on Gandia's main urban beach, on the corner of Calles Galicia and Mallorca, opposite the Ducal residential complex and a popular restaurant.

Guests at one of the largest hotels in the area have to walk past it to get to the beach, and local residents get a full view of it from their balconies.

Traders and residents have written collectively to the council three times, copying in the freehold community, but have never had a reply.

It is not clear who owns the villa.

With squatting on the rise in empty holiday homes and even shift workers' main homes – sometimes through organised crime gangs who 'sell' the key for hundreds of euros the day before an eviction takes place to force the process to restart from the beginning – police and insurance companies are urging owners to take all the usual 'going away' precautions, such as having mail collected, lights switched on and off, and a friend or neighbour checking on the property constantly.