Anthony Piovesan
If you fill up regularly at this Costa del Sol petrol station you might often see a woman and her two dogs living there, and she has revealed why.
The small seaside town of Sabinillas is rallying around a woman who has suddenly been plunged into homelessness and forced to sleep out of her car with her pet dogs.
Grisselle Wiesse Crovetto has been sleeping rough for nearly three weeks after she returned from a trip to look after her sick mother in her home country of Peru.
On October 30, she found her flat in San Luis de Sabinillas locked, with all of her possessions still inside.
The only things she had with her were her possessions inside the suitcase she was carrying at the time, and her 11 pets who she calls ‘my family’.
The Olive Press visited the 49-year-old’s temporary home in the car park at Repsol, at the Sabinillas roundabout.
At the time she was waiting for her laundry to dry at the gas station’s washing machines.
She told the newspaper that her landlord had entered the house ‘illegally’ while she had been away and in the process, her seven cats and four dogs escaped into the streets.
She found all seven cats and three of her dogs, but the fourth dog Samantha was still roaming the streets.
“I love them, they’re my family and it’s not possible to live without them,” Crovetto said.
“It gets a little bit cold in the nights but I put a film on my phone and I cuddle my dogs in the back seat – I feel safe with them.”
Crovetto said she had been paying rent while she was in Peru and had denounced the landlord on November 2 for ‘entering without a Judge’s notice’ – an outcome will be decided on Friday.
In the meantime, Crovetto ate breakfast every morning next to the petrol station, Cafe y Tapas La Puerta.
She used the site’s laundry to wash her clothes and the blankets her and her dogs slept under every night.
Crovetto gets a discount for her daily feed at Yusra, a kebab shop next to the Sabinillas beachfront.
There was also a local couple who lived near the petrol station and allowed Crovetto to shower at their home, and sometimes even sleep on their sofa.
Another woman, Jessica, was also housing Crovetto’s third dog Dobby, who suffered a broken foot – Crovetto’s seven cats were being housed at a local cattery.
“All these people are angels,” Crovetto said.
“They are helping me a lot and I am eternally grateful.”
Crovetto said all 11 pets were rescues she had stumbled across in the countryside outside her previous home in Duquesa, and Sabinillas, over the past five years.
Crovetto worked as a flight attendant for Air Europa, but her ERTE finished at the end of the month.
She said she was now looking for a home in Madrid where she could house her animals, while searching for employment.
She also called out for anyone locally who had a place for her and her pets to stay temporarily.
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