“I Paid for the Water They Used”: The Owner of a Núñez Building Taken Over by More Than 100 Foreign Occupants for 20 Years

Leonardo says he paid for the water consumed inside his own building while more than 100 people occupied it for over two decades. Now that the property has been cleared, the owner says entering it left him overwhelmed by anguish.

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I feel like a fool.

The building at Manuela Pedraza 1875, one block from Núñez station on the Mitre railway, has eight floors and 32 apartments. Leonardo bought it shortly before construction ended, but one day he could no longer get inside. The occupants claimed they had a contract with someone who was not the owner, leaving Leonardo to prove in court that the property belonged to him. The process took years before a judge finally authorized the eviction.

The occupants later called him seeking an agreement, he said, but he refused. “How am I supposed to negotiate with someone who is extorting me?” Leonardo is retired and declined to give his surname or appear in photographs. He also owns a property in Constitución that remains occupied and hopes that case will move faster.

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How am I supposed to negotiate with someone who is extorting me?

Police from Buenos Aires City, the Government Control Agency, emergency teams and social workers took part in the operation. Officials registered the occupants and offered them alternative housing. The city had found the building in very poor living conditions in April. Neighbors reported an intentional fire inside, while occupants without electricity or gas reportedly made fires on the terrace.

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I entered the hall, went up one floor and felt so much anguish that I left.

Leonardo visited after the eviction but left after reaching the first floor. He described the property as filled with scrap and rubbish. Buenos Aires Mayor Jorge Macri said occupied properties damage both their owners and surrounding neighborhoods. His administration says it has cleared more than 940 occupied properties and returned assets worth the equivalent of $500 million to their owners. The city said crime rates fell in areas where properties were recovered.

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The illegal occupation of a property harms not only the owner but also the neighborhood, because evil takes root on the block: drugs, insecurity, trafficking, everything.