Maurine Moore, a 90-year-old retired child psychologist, was evicted from her retirement village home in Melbourne after repeatedly breaching a smoking ban. Moore claims the pressure from the village management led to her relapse into smoking and that she was treated poorly by staff.
Life got so bad for 90-year-old Maurine Moore at her home in a retirement village in Melbourne that she contemplated suicide.Earlier this year, the retired child psychologist and volunteer, who has mobility issues, packed up her antique furniture, boxed her hundreds of books and a prized collection of Royal Doulton figurines, and left the place she had called home for 15 years.
On one occasion, she says a staff member blocked her car as she was trying to leave the village and smiled at her as he walked off for 15 minutes, which made her late for a GP appointment.After that came emails, visits to her unit, which are allowed under her contract, then legal letters, demands for expensive work on her unit, which she couldn't afford, followed by breaches and contested accusations of a "putrid stench" coming from her home.
It said she effectively had to pull apart the air conditioning and "remove and clean all mechanical systems, including the air conditioning cassette unit, exhaust fans, range hoods, duct work, registers and controllers; remove and clean all power points and light switches". "This can only be either deliberate or reckless harassment. Please stop. It is not helping you, and it is — as I have said — causing needless and severe distress to my client, a resident of the village you manage who is a frail, elderly woman.""This is a moment where everyone can step back, take a breath, and figure out how to de-escalate and move forward together."
"We proposed that there be an area where she was able to smoke that wouldn't impact on other residents, and we tried to negotiate with the village management.Pinnacle said any compromise would require Maurine to build a self-contained room in her courtyard area "which does not permit smoke to emanate from outside of that area."Later that month, on February 28, 2022, she was given a notice of breach and termination with a deadline to vacate her home on or before May 4.
Without naming her, the letter outlined the history of the dispute with a resident over smoking and how it had cost Pinnacle $92,000 to fight the matter. In its letter, the company said her home was in an "extremely poor state" and would take a long time to repair, potentially costing more than $100,000, which it would waive if she took the deal.
"I'm sorry," she says, crying. "I shouldn't say this, but at one time, I contemplated suicide. I felt that bad."Pinnacle declined to be interviewed but, in a statement, said more than 80 per cent of village residents had voted in October 2018 to change its rules to ban smoking throughout the village.
Pinnacle put Maurine's house on the market for $1.1 million, spruiking it as "the epitome of refined living"."I would have been happy just to get back what I actually paid for it, but they didn't even pay that," she says."They want the residents to get out and then they can resell the unit at a higher amount of money for the next person coming in."Retirement villages earn most of their revenue when residents leave the village.
It said some residents found the bullying was so intolerable they had become depressed and considered suicide.The ABC has been inundated with accounts from residents and their families describing some harrowing stories about retirement villages. "If they're 23 per cent this year, what can they do next year and the year after and the year after?" he says.He moved into a rental property while the house was put up for sale.
Retirement Village Eviction Smoking Ban Elderly Abuse Australia
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