Ústí nad Labem municipal police officers could not believe their eyes when they inspected a disused office building in the breadlice industrial zone. Here, uninvited guests lit a fire on the porch and cooked in it. This is not an isolated case.
Uninvited guests lit a cooking fire in the hallway of the house
| Video: Ústí nad Labem Municipal Police
They face the problem of homeless people often destroying public facilities. For example, recently, this has involved breaking into a transfer station or setting fire to an abandoned building. The unsafe use of open fire is most evident in the ruins of the Máj Hotel on the northern terrace, where large charred and discolored spots protrude from broken windows.
“But since it is a private property, we are not allowed to explore there. Even if we check from outside, if anyone goes there, we will drive them away. It is a dangerous place. Fires often add to the mountains of trash left behind by the homeless. In the past, it was in abandoned, dilapidated houses in Předlice, now in demolished apartments in Matiční and elsewhere in the city. That is why we are taking control measures. We often evicted the homeless from their inappropriately located temporary housing and then removed the many truckloads they left behind. “We also use to clean up alternative offenders who are serving sentences in the city police,” explained John Novotny, deputy director of the city police.
Ústí asked the building authority to release a demolition estimate for Hotel Máj
From the fire department’s point of view, fires don’t happen often in the homeless’s advanced housing, although they do go to them. The biggest problem is the abandoned and unsafe buildings. “For example, Hotel Mage, that’s a classic. As for other places, sometimes we go to burn cables, other times we burn rubbish in abandoned houses. But it’s not necessarily the fault of the homeless,” added Lukas Marvan, spokesman for the Ústí fire brigade.
Similarly, in the summer of two years ago, an abandoned former car dealer burned down near Větruší, and at that time there was talk of the homeless. Another time, a red rooster ran rampant in a house opposite the West Station in U České besedy, already demolished today. According to “Roommates,” he set the medicine cooker on fire. Homeless people have already set fire to Hotel Máj in at least a dozen cases over the past several years.
Source: MP Ústí n. L.
You were able to read this article by subscribing to Deník Klub
