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The building whose residents are being evicted by the Abu Dhabi Municipality. — KT photo
Another overcrowded all-bachelor building is being evicted in the Capital’s busy Hamdan Street, affecting about 600 people. The five-storey building is located in Freej Al Sayegh between Hamdan Street and Electra Street and is managed by the owners without brokers.
According to residents, they received eviction notices from the Abu Dhabi Municipality about a week ago. “About eight of us stay in a flat and pay Dh2,500 each per month,” said Mohammed Alam, a Bangladeshi tenant.
Last week, over 1,000 bachelors were evicted from an old building on Electra Street. The building, according to the Capital’s civic body and a representative of its owner, was overcrowded and each apartment was “turned into a colony”, which is “bad for the city’s image and could cause health problems”.
The tenants of Freej Al Sayegh building have already started hunting for bed spaces in the neighbourhood.
“We will hopefully be able to find a sharing apartment soon. We cannot live in Musaffah or Baniyas because our jobs are here in the city, so we need to find a new place here itself,” said Abdul Rahman Kutty, an employee of a grocery shop.
The building has 20 two-bed room flats — four on each floor — and each accommodating up to 30 tenants. The hall of each apartment is rented out for Dh3,500 a month, while each bedroom fetches anywhere between Dh2,500 to Dh2,800 per month. The owners of the building were not available for comment.
However, one of the tenants, Hassan Mohammed Uddin from India’s Hyderabad, had another story to tell. According to him, the municipality lodged cases against tenants for flouting tenancy contract rules by re-renting the apartments that overcrowded the building. Abu Dhabi Municipality regulations allow only three tenants in a single room, while halls can’t be used as bedrooms.
He said: “The municipality has put up notices on each apartment door saying the flats have been re-rented illegally and therefore, tenants have to evacuate them. In our case, the apartment contract is under my name and we have six people sharing it. I have been to the municipality and court but nothing has happened so far.”
The search continues
Meanwhile, tenants who were evicted last week are still looking for flats or bed spaces. Some of them have found sharing accommodation with friends. “I have found a bed space with some friends. For a few days, I was staying with friends temporarily, but now I have found a place not far from the building I used to live in,” said Nazir Ahmed, one of the evicted tenants.
Another evicted tenant, Amin Hossain, said he has been living with some friends temporarily since his eviction. “I and my former room-mates are still looking for a room. There are a few available, but we cannot afford them.”
nissar@khaleejtimes.com
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