A 75-year-old woman has been virtually unable to leave her fourth floor flat for nine months because the lift installed in the property was never activated.

Antide Baldacchino does not have the strength to climb the stairs of the apartment block in Fleur-de-Lys, leaving her a prisoner inside her penthouse.

“I’m locked up in here,” she told Times of Malta, sobbing.

“I can’t stand it any longer.”

She has been out of her home only twice since she moved into the flat in February and that was to get the potentially lifesaving COVID-19 vaccine.

Payment issues between the building contractor and the service provider have meant the lift was installed but never activated, despite repeated promises to resolve the issue.

Her daughter, Sandra Grech, decided to speak out publicly after seeing her mother distressed and “weakened” in the last nine months.

“This is too much! I am so tired of the situation. My mother did everything for us,” she said.

Antide used to go to Mass daily and do her grocery shopping before she moved and the problem with the lift impeded her from leaving home.

She only did so twice, for her COVID vaccinations, and this was only possible with the assistance of two people, who placed chairs on every landing for her to have a rest, her daughter said.

Antide’s elderly siblings are also unable to visit her because they too cannot handle the stairs to the top-floor flat.

The family house in Fleur-de-Lys was demolished in 2016 to build apartments instead and Antide took the penthouse as part of the deal.

“I’m locked up in here. I can’t stand it any longer”

“I wanted to put my mind at rest that my unmarried daughter would be taken care of,” she said.

“But I wouldn’t have agreed to it without the lift. When my daughter told me to take the penthouse, my response was no. But he [the contractor] assured me that he would install a lift and all would be fine.”

Although the development was meant to be completed within a year, it lasted six, her daughter explained, adding that this prolonged period was fraught with fights with the contractor.

She has been tolerant of others’ possible financial problems and had given the contractor “time to get back on his feet”. But her patience has now run out as she sees her mother suffering and her telephone calls are no longer being answered.

The lift has been installed, but a payment row means it has never been activated. Photo: Karl Andrew Micallef

“I cannot blame the lift installers because they never got paid by the contractor,” Grech said.

“I have offered them to pay my mother’s share of the cost of the €25,350 lift again – even though this was part of the deal – but I understand they need to get paid in full for their work.”

Grech has since pleaded with them to “switch on” the lift at least to her mother’s floor for her use alone, describing the situation as “immoral”.

She said court cases have been instituted against the contractor and her lawyer’s last letter informed him they would hold him responsible if anything happened to her mother and sister, who is sick, and also lives in the flat.

Times of Malta has spoken to other residents of the building  who are also angry about the lack of a working lift.

“When wannabe contractors mess up, the authorities should blacklist them and not allow them to keep doing business,” one neighbour said.

“I do not know what would happen in an emergency”

“Why should families like us keep getting bitten?”

The 75-year-old now spends her days cooking and cleaning  while her only contact with the outside world is a terrace.

“I went crazy stuck indoors in quarantine for two weeks, let alone all this time,” her daughter said, adding that her mother’s emotional and physical health had deteriorated in the last nine months.

“I do not know what would happen in an emergency,” she said, pointing out that she and her siblings worked, so there was a limit to how often they could visit.

Times of Malta is not publishing the name of the contractor, on the request of the family. He has been approached for comment.