A house that's only half habitable. This is the surreal situation facing Antonio Niedda, a 77-year-old retiree who has lived on Via Colombo, in the Latte Dolce neighborhood, in Sassari since 1963. It all began, or rather, continued, last week. "Part of the ceiling in the study crumbled," he says. The firefighters who responded to the top-floor apartment, owned by Area, simply left everything as it was. "They told me that if they worked on the rest, there was a risk the whole thing would collapse." The room was therefore declared off-limits, but unfortunately for Niedda, the rest of the house is no better. "They even declared the dining room uninhabitable."
The view of the room is shocking: damp and mold have attacked the walls, extending to within a few centimeters of the floor. Cracks also appear in the ironing room, and green fungal streaks appear in the bedroom. "Years ago, some debris had fallen, destroying the television."
He has to stay away from this one too: three out of six bedrooms. The apartment is a battlefield, struggling to defend itself from the assaults of water infiltration. "It's been a disaster since the 2021 tornado," says the man, a bookbinder by trade. "The wind blew the roofs off." The repairs were recent, with a double sheathing, but now the cows have bolted. The houses are swollen with water that continues to press on the walls. And Niedda's bears the marks everywhere. "I sleep at my daughter's," he explains. "This is where Area needs to intervene." Relations with them are tense: "They won't let me do the work at my own expense and they expect me to continue paying the rent."
Antonio and his family have been paying the rent for 63 years. "My parents, my brother, and my wife died in this house. That's why I tell them I'll never leave." Meanwhile, across the street, regionally funded renovation work is underway on other buildings belonging to Area, the Regional Housing Agency. "Isn't there any money left for our homes?" Antonio Niedda wonders.