With Carlos Mazón's garden at home in Orihuela: “Even snakes come out”

María José Ruiz no longer knows who to turn to. Since the Generalitat assumed ownership of the Marquis of Rafal Palace, the current headquarters of the presidency, the neglect and abandonment of the gardens has kept her parents helpless. The elderly couple resides in the house adjacent to the building, closed since the president, Carlos Mazón, took charge in Valencia.

In the neglected interior garden, the bougainvilleas no longer have hands to cut them and they grow wild in all directions, invading the neighboring farms. To the point that the branches have even entered Ruiz's parents' house. “They get in through the roof of the gallery.” Covered, the space consists of two floors, which they use to wash and hang clothes and, through the separation fence, with holes, vigorous branches full of thorns protrude.

Ruiz states that, while the palace was open, he already warned the people they saw entering and leaving the building. Also after closing. “They don't pay attention to us, they have been cut twice, but my parents are older and are not in a position to be able to cut them, nor am I going to pay anyone to carry out that task, since it is not my responsibility.”

Ruiz assures that his father has even gone so far as to put a narrow piece of wood between the first floor balcony that overlooks the patio and the separation fence. «I don't feel like my father getting on a board like that. If he falls, we could have a misfortune.”

However, Ruiz misses when the old housekeeper was in charge of the nobles' housing. “She always had everything perfect.” Now, he says, the pruning remains scattered on the ground and the dirt are creating an unsanitary problem. «One day my mother found a snake that got into the house from the Palace. She got quite a scare. “My father had to come running from the street to get it,” she says.

Mazón announced last month that he will invest five million euros in the rehabilitation of the palace so that it can house the Casa del Agua y del Limón. The City Council maintains open negotiations to install the Tourist Office on the ground floor, now in the same town hall.

With the entry of the new Consell, it has been argued that the Palace cannot house anything due to its “semi-ruin” state, despite the fact that, while the Botanical Garden was there, the building had administrative activity (the Vega Renhace Plan) and cultural activity, with guided tours, exhibitions and concerts in the garden. According to the current regional executive, the previous government hid problems of humidity and damage.