• Dominique Delage, 62, a tenant in the social park in Talence near Bordeaux, is under threat of eviction after complaints from his neighbors for noise pollution.
  • Her lease was terminated by a court decision because of these neighborhood disturbances, in particular because she prays aloud, and she finds herself without alternative housing as the winter break ends on March 31.
  • Pending a decision from the State services concerning an enforceable right to housing procedure (DALO), she is accompanied by the association droit au logement which is trying to obtain a delay from its social landlord.

Of course, she does not seem to be the ideal neighbor but risks today, thanks to the winter break, to find herself on the street, at 62 years old. Dominique Delage, retired caregiver and Christian evangelist, is used to praying aloud, which has the gift of ruining the lives of his neighbors since he moved into the social residence of Les Olibets de Talence, near Bordeaux, in April 2019.

She is being evicted in the coming days, without any offer of housing so far. If she pays her rent receipts, it is repeated noise nuisance in her residence that earns her a notice to leave the premises. Distraught, she has trouble organizing her thoughts and navigating the various administrative procedures she has to launch, even if she is supported by a social worker.

A lease terminated by court decision

After a petition signed by eight tenants exasperated and embarrassed in the "peaceful enjoyment" of their homes, the case goes to the court which decides on September 8, 2022 to terminate the lease. He is accused of various neighborhood disturbances "insults, preaching and prayers, impossibility to enjoy the balcony without suffering racist, homophobic and misogynistic remarks, peeling in green spaces," says the decision of the judicial court of Bordeaux. While she refutes xenophobic remarks, she acknowledges that she has "gone a bit far in making homophobic remarks. We must leave them alone, make their lives. I am ready to ask for forgiveness."

"It is the State (under the enforceable right to housing DALO that she has requested) that will make the decision to refer her file to one landlord or another," says Emilie Degrugillier, deputy director of the Bordeaux Atlantique agency of CDC Habitat, the social landlord of her residence. We, as donors, are only enforcing a court decision. The association droit au logement (DAL) of the Gironde that accompanies it hopes to obtain at least a delay from the landlord until the response intervenes.

"All the measures to prevent eviction were taken not to get to this point and it lasted for many months," says Emilie Degrugillier, who explains that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) does not allow to go into the details of the personal situation of this tenant. "The neighbors were not involved in the attempts at conciliation, it is not normal," notes the representative of the DAL, since these are nuisances denounced by the neighborhood. She believes, when entering the dwelling where one feels that the tenant is overwhelmed by the events, that she "needs help".

"If I don't pray, I fall"

After the destruction of the D bar in which she lived in the Cité de la Benauge, she was relocated to Talence. "I was already praying out loud, it was not a problem, says the sexagenarian but since I am here, as we are on top of each other and that it is brick, that it is not isolated, I have a lot of reproaches". When asked if she tried to make less noise while praying, she replied, "I haven't thought about buying an amplifier or a microphone. I take things with humor otherwise I would go crazy. »

We feel listening to her a fragility and a certain loneliness even if her daughter helps her as best she can in this difficult moment. "The pastor of my church had advised us to read aloud to memorize the word of God and maybe I took it too much to heart," she admits. If I don't pray, I fall... She also recounts her material setbacks since her arrival in the apartment and the lack of responsiveness they have caused, from her point of view, in her landlord: a leaky boiler flooding her apartment, a defective parking door that generates noise near her bedroom and a rat invasion for which she called a pest control company. "The presence of rats should have given rise to relocation at that time," points out the DAL. On these points, conciliation has been attempted without success.

The sexagenarian is worried about the fate of her three cats, perched all over the apartment, looking for an adoption solution for two of them. "I probably won't be able to take them with me when I have to leave," she says.

  • Society
  • Right to housing
  • Gironde
  • New Aquitaine
  • Aquitaine
  • Bordeaux
  • Winter Treve
  • Dal