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The first thing Karen Bateman thought when told to remove her home of eight years this week was – “there goes our life savings”.
Her and husband David are among the more than 90 people in Bendigo told on Tuesday they had until the end of next year to pack up and move out of there caravans and mobile homes.
When the 62-year-old and her husband were both forced into retirement and onto a disability pension eight years ago, they could no longer manage the mortgage on their Melbourne property.
So they looked north for something more affordable.
They found a run-down mobile home at the Central City Caravan Park going for $35,000.
Until a combination of nerve-damage, back and knee injuries and complications in his stomach forced him to give up the work, Mr Bateman put his skills as a former painter to good use.
About $60,000 and eight years later, the Bateman’s home is now in mint condition.
But now all that work appears for naught.
“We can’t afford to move it and we can’t afford to demolish,” Mr Bateman said.
Like all the park’s residents, the Batemans are required to leave the site of their former home completely vacant. He said that – financially – was simply not an option.
“We’re going to just have to walk away,” he said.
“They can take us to court – but you can’t draw blood from a stone.”
Mr Bateman is far from the only resident struggling with poor health and, at 64, he’s among the more youthful.
His neighbour Jim Merriner, 80, has both diabetes and cancer.
“We’re all elderly, we’re all pensioners, the bulk of us have got medical issues,” his wife Denise said.
“We’ve been told we need to pull up stumps and move everything – but we’ve got no money to move … and we don’t know where to go.”
The Merriners have called their caravan home since retiring and moving from Adelaide 29 years ago.
Mature rose bushes and a flourishing flower garden are testament to their years of gardening.
The pair said moving to the caravan park was a choice they had never regretted.
“We weren’t multimillionaires,” Mrs Merriner said.
“But we had a good life style,” her husband finished.
“We’ve got a lot of friends here, and we all congregate and have a chat,” she continued.
“They look after you, when you go away for the weekend, they water your plants,” Mr Merriner said.
The caravan park will continue trading for another 14 months.
But the business owner Christine Norman said, after that, her desire to renew her lease from the land owner was “beyond hope”.