MIMIU-CATUNU
Electricity The houses closer to the southern road and to the refinery wall have access to electricity. The few roads that lead into the community are with public lighting. But most of the houses in Mimiu are not legally connected to these facilities. The few households who have a contract for electricity allow their neighbors to connect into their network through improvised cables and “pull electricity” for lighting, in return of about 20 euros a month. Other households, that cannot make this kind of arrangement, “pull electricity” from the public lighting power polls. There are entire networks of “borrowed” electricity, with improvised wires. The main use of electricity is for 1 or 2 light bulbs in each household. People resort to these illegal arrangements because otherwise they would have to “stay at the candle light”. The reasons for the situation are complex: not having property documents, necessary for a legal contract for facilities; not affording to pay for the installation; not affording to play the monthly contract payments. Sewage system Neither Catun nor Mimiu are connected to a sewage system. Some households in Catun afford to call the local company for cleaning the septic tank. All the others either built a septic tank in the garden, either use the land fills around. Either way, these practice affect the health of the household members and worsen the situation of the habitat. These improvised arrangements would be normal in rural areas, close to the fields or forests. But in a city, on a formal industrial platform, surrounded mostly by ruins and abandoned buildings, where the ground has lost the regenerating powers, these arrangements become dangerous for the dwellers.
HOUSING