Fiona, a hairdresser from Melbourne, Australia, found herself in a very bizarre situation from which there is no way out.
Namely, a homeless woman named Heidi Withers moved to Fiona’s property and refuses to leave the land. She didn’t only place a mattress there, but a bunch of her belongings, including a fridge, and started squatting in a makeshift campsite.
“It’s not just a mattress or a bed. It’s everything. It’s fridges, it’s a couch and god knows what else, all her things are all out there,” the desperate homeowner told Nine News show A Current Affair. “She’s camping there. She’s essentially squatting outside my unit. It’s my place, I am the owner. You would think that I have a say as to who stays there.”
But Heidi isn’t the only person living on Fiona’s private property. She has also invited two other people to live with her.
Fiona is desperate as authorities say she doesn’t have the right to remove Heidi from her front garden. The president of the Real Estate Institute of Victoria, Leah Calnan, says the rules are set up in favor of tenants rather than landlords.
The biggest issue is that Fiona doesn’t live in the house herself. Now, in order for her to be able to remove the trespassers, she would have to evict the tenant she’s renting her house to, and that’s a complicated issue.
“I don’t want to evict him. But I do want to evict Heidi from my property. She’s not welcome there. I certainly don’t want anyone to be homeless, but I need something to happen,” Fiona added.
“If she’s got nowhere to go, I’m sure a shelter will help her. There’s got to be help out there.”
Check out the video below to learn more of the awkward situation Fiona has found herself in.
