Janet Walker’s flat came crashing down at the start of summer after months of filing complaints and warnings about the construction site next door. Six months later, as the family spend the festive season in their rented residence, she is as far away from getting answers as she was back then.

No-one has so far taken responsibility for the collapse. And an ongoing magisterial inquiry has left the block’s former residents with scant detail about when they might be able to return to their homes in Pietà.

“You’d never expect something like this to happen,” Ms Walker told Times of Malta.

“I was wearing my oldest pair of shorts. I was going to start on the housework when it happened. My neighbours were evacuated shirtless or in their night gowns,” she recalled.

“I want people to answer my questions and I want to know what the state is doing to protect me and protect others if it happens again”- Janet Walker

“Later, the police called us to come to move our cars elsewhere, but we couldn’t because the keys were still inside.”

Ms Walker and her family were evacuated with only the shirts on their backs. The confusion and trauma that would be enough to make anybody’s head spin was further compounded as days continued to march on and the family found they were lacking some of the most basic items.

“It was a big expense, to start with. The first thing we bought was a walker for my mother because hers had been left in the apartment and we couldn’t get it. Then it was clothes, we had to go shopping looking like we’d left the house in rags. Then it was pots and pans, a kettle. It’s the little things,” Ms Walker said.

Her sister Stephanie said it was the simplest things that they found themselves lacking.

“My daughter developed a fever overnight on one occasion, and we didn’t have a thermometer.

“I had to wait until the shops were open the next day,” she said.

Janet pointed out that they were in a better position than others as they could afford such unexpected expenses.

The popular Duke's bar remains closed after a roof caved in following works on a block above it. Photo: Mark Zammit Cordina

“We’re fortunate that we don’t live paycheck to paycheck, as some families affected do. I can’t imagine living hand to mouth and being able to make it out of this situation, because this move was hugely expensive for us and it’s not something that you can overcome with relative assurance if you don’t have the means,” she said.

The family has since undergone further physical, mental and emotional strain, as they’ve had to remove what possessions were salvageable from their home to an apartment in Rabat rented for them by the Housing Authority.

With no assurances or deadlines in sight, the family feel like they are living with the sword of Damocles dangling overhead.

“We would have liked to resolve this as quickly as possible,” Ms Walker said.

“The government acted quickly when it shut down construction, and that was all well and good. But there is nothing holding site owners and contractors responsible for the things that they cause. The new laws have shifted responsibility onto a site technical officer, but who do I turn to when things go wrong?” she asked.

“I don’t want to spend 20 years in court, I want to go back home. I want people to answer my questions and I want to know what the state is doing to protect me and protect others if it happens again.”

Referring to other property collapses adjacent to construction sites last year, she said: “The Duke’s Bar is still closed, that was someone’s livelihood, the Gwardamangia Hill families are being taken for a ride by an uncooperative developer, the Mellieħa resident died a few weeks after her home collapsed and my downstairs neighbour’s floor has sunk two inches into the ground and developers are telling us that structurally it is safe to go back in.”

A Mellieħa apartment which collapsed earlier this year. Its resident escaped unscathed, but died a few weeks later. Photo: Jonathan Borg

Families who lived in Ms Walker’s block have been told that the building has been made structurally sound but she says it is in no state to live in. Through their lawyers, she and her family have proposed to the developer that they refurbish the block to recoup the property’s lost value and to be reimbursed for expenses incurred from the evacuation and subsequent move from their home.

They have yet to receive an acknowledgment.

“We’ve been robbed of our home and of our routine. We just want to try and get what we had back. That’s all we’re asking.”