Arson is suspected to be the cause of a fire that completely flattened a two-bedroom house at Farm, Mahaicony around 11.45 pm on Friday.
Owner of the house, Hilton ‘Passion’ Bacchus told Stabroek News that he was not at home at the time of the fire and that nothing was saved.
Bacchus who earned his living as a weeder lamented that his “weeding machine” as well as a gas stove, suite and electrical appliances were among the items destroyed by the flames. He also lost a small amount of cash he was saving to “buy blocks to make a concrete house” as well as his important documents.
He recalled that on Friday evening he had a problem with his estranged wife, who had broken the lock on his gate on Thursday and entered his house.
Neighbours said before the fire started on Friday they saw her walking calmly out of the house and hiding a bag under the bridge. They said she walked back in the yard but they did not see when she left; shortly afterwards they saw the house on fire.
The fire tender from Mahaica was summoned and when it arrived the firefighters put out the fire completely and conducted investigations. Bacchus also made a report at the Mahcicony Police Station.
Bacchus recalled that last November the woman “made a false allegation against me and I was sent to prison for six months innocently.” He was released on March 6.
In the meantime, she had moved to her mother’s house in Berbice with one of their two daughters while the other daughter has been living with an aunt in Linden.
After his term ended he decided that “I don’t want her any more but she keep coming…” On Friday he insisted that she should leave because “me aint trust you to live in my house again.
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After she refused to go, he packed a few pieces of clothing in a bag and told her he was “going away.” He then left for a “family-house about a mile away.”
Around midnight he received a call that his house was on fire. When he got to the scene on his bicycle the building was already burnt.
She broke the lock to the gate some time on Thursday morning, he said, and entered the yard. He was still puzzled as to how she entered the house because the locks were intact.
He was shocked to see her when he went home around midday to retrieve more ‘blades’ for his machine to continue working. She told him she was “hungry bad and she start cooking.”
He made a report at the station and police promised to go to the house “to do an investigation but they did not come.”
Previously, the probation officer had told him that “because she was still my wife” she could not be prevented from entering the house.
The distraught man will be staying at the home of an aunt at Perth, Mahaicony until he can afford to build again. He said he it was very hard to see his hard-earned possessions burnt to ashes and he stood in the rain for hours watching what remained of them.
He stayed there until a neighbour called him and gave him clean clothing and told him “you are a Christian, come and bathe and go to church…”
