‘Our dream home was destroyed’ . BBC Inside Out

mio Akuma Larry than this is inside out west midlands [Music] tonight we are in a very rainy Shropshire but we're on the trail of some very important women often left out of history but first a picture this a beautiful house near the beach year-long sunshine sands ideal doesn't it well sadly this wasn't the case for a couple who left her effort to retire in Cyprus Jeremy Stern has a story son see and they even drive on the left-hand side of the road more than a million bricks fly to Cyprus every year and it's easy to see why now most come here on holiday but some people like the island so much that they sell out back home a moon fear for good the village of pisser is a mile from the south coast it's a popular place for expats to settle [Music] retired Army Colonel Peter field and his wife Kate whom he referred sold their home in England to come here we moved in in 1993 the perfect it's just outside the centre of the village a perfect position the most beautiful views but their perfect home was built on shifting sands something traumatic happened and it has changed completely you actually wouldn't believe it people have had to be in war zones places like that to see the sort of trouble you'll find in our cars like I'm gonna see it I'd very much like you to is popping round to the fields home requires some unusual headgear hello come in see what's left of our house [Applause] the crack started by three years ago they've just got larger and larger and as you see they've now split the house in two if this is an interesting room it's the one that ladies seemed to find most of pressing our main bedroom it was one level obviously at some stage and the most beautiful room and now it is an absolute ruined splitting the house apart and so said with their home condemned the fields are now renting we lost really everything and that we weren't going to get any help at all it's it's it's a very strange thing I think your health just deteriorates you're not aware of it's happening to any large degree I mean as far as I was concerned I always slept extremely well and I started waking up every hour on the hour I'm worrying Kate and Peter both ended up in hospital in the past they've always said well done you know you look 10 years younger than you are and on this occasion it wasn't right and so I have had few things fitted to me I am sure that stress has it had something to do with it elsewhere in a village deep holes have appeared out of nowhere pipes of burst roads have disintegrated and the repairs have failed huge crack three foot wide 15 yards long it was quite frightening to look at mikelis from Buckinghamshire saw his house here and the land around it literally split open the council came along they filled it in for health and safety reasons but as you can see it continues to open and it continues to move down and that's what's happened systematically up the valley cracks open up and the land moves away and down and it takes everything with it a Charter geologist hired by residents confirmed there's an active landslide under piss Horry Mick's wife Louise is showing sister Julie the extent of the damage since she last visited here ago there was a slight crack but hardly anything doing water or water mains that's going to go and that goes right across water pipe yeah so we lose water or lose electric we usually lose all the utilities we're gonna have to leave anyway I got the pool we've got raw sewage going in the pool is it safe to be in the house no not really George keeps there in cracks in the night and then this was pinned look look at the metal so we don't know how far underneath the foundations it goes the investment in a home in the Sun is crumbling to dust it's worth noting they're absolutely worthless it actually cost us money actually nothing not a penny not a penny the family's on borrowed time living here will soon become too dangerous they'll have to leave you put all of your life savings into a property so that you've got no rent when you retire to find out at sixty three years of age that I'm going to have to be finding rent to live it's very very difficult and it it eats away at you as in Britain most standard home insurance here doesn't cover landslides its government's that are responsible for compensating victims of natural disasters like landslides so today I'm in Limassol to see Cyprus government representative Marius Alexandra how much sympathy do you have for these people who are in there we are there we are there and we will try to help them as much as we can but the Cypriot government has yet to concede that the damage in basura is down to a landslide so while some have had help with alternative accommodation there'd been no payouts as I said conversation would quickly let's say - it's something that the state will decide I don't remember even one one let's say case that the government left the people alone never but the people we've met impasse or II do feel abandoned it's six years since the problems were first reported yet still the government inquiries go on if they accept it's a landslide and it's a big if I still think it's gonna be a long time before any compensation would pay out if they don't accept it and that's looking more likely I think this could drag on for the years in 2014 Surrey couple Jeremy and Catherine Yeomans took out a mortgage to buy a home in pastori they've since lost all faith in the Cypriot government there are nice words spoken by government guys and they'll come and say oh yeah we understand your pain and but nobody does anything so that's when it gets me angry and it makes me really angry sometimes just to try and understand the extent of the hardship that this is bringing on people's lives you know not least on wife Catherine this is our dream we can go back to the UK because we have nothing there we have no property it's huge [Music] I'm sorry that it's so hard you're nothing to be sorry about me in pessary Katyn pita fields memories of a relaxed retirement in a beautiful place lie in ruins this was our main room so many happy memories here party is particularly Christmases and the grandchildren coming out and seeing them getting older using the pool it was a lovely place we miss it very much indeed we never dreamt in a million years that we would be in this situation having worked all our lives to achieve this well why would we not feel that we'd have a roof over our head for the rest of our lives

Channel: Stern Stuff

Views: 16,668

Rating: 4.7808218 out of 5

Keywords: Pissouri

Id: DLyDaT0vjMM

Length: 9min 22sec (562 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 26 2018