With her house crack­ing and shift­ing at a rapid pace, 42-year-old Princes Town wid­ow Ra­jen­daye Gird­har­ry may not have a home for Christ­mas.

The house at Gan­pat Road, Cleghorn Vil­lage, was once a place of se­cu­ri­ty for her and her fam­i­ly of five, in­clud­ing two chil­dren. How­ev­er, Gird­har­ry said, “I have to sleep with one eye open and one eye close be­cause I don’t know what could hap­pen in the house as it crack­up.”

She be­gan notic­ing the cracks and move­ment six months ago, but since then, she said, the house had moved at least five to ten feet and her porch was al­most de­stroyed.

There are large cracks in the walls and floor­ing, and there are gap­ing holes in the yard.

Gird­har­ry said the bed­room in which her dis­abled broth­er-in-law slept was al­so falling apart.

“My fear is that I have kids in the place and it could fall any­time and I need some help to fix back my place. I am not work­ing any­where,” she said.

Al­most two years ago, on De­cem­ber 31, 2021, her hus­band died from COVID-19, and since then, as a sin­gle moth­er, she has been try­ing to make ends meet.

“I work re­al­ly hard when I was younger, me and my hus­band work hard and help we self. I asked no­body for help. I al­ways in­de­pen­dent. I nev­er wait for no­body for any­thing,” Gird­har­ry said as she wept.

She said they tried prop­ping up the gal­vanised shed in front of the home with wood­en beams. “It not work­ing, the house com­ing down and if this falls it will dam­age the kids. I can’t stand in the gallery be­cause it will fall down any­time soon with the rain,” she lament­ed.

The wid­ow said her 22-year-old daugh­ter, her sev­en-year-old son, her four-year-old grand­daugh­ter and her son-in-law al­so lived in the house, and if it crum­bled, they will have nowhere to go.

Gird­har­ry said she did hair­dress­ing jobs “now and then” at her home while her son-in-law did gar­den­ing, but she did not have the fi­nances to re­pair her home or build a new one. Three months ago, she asked the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion to build a rub­ble drain.

“Maybe is the wa­ter from the road that is caus­ing my house to crack up, I don’t know.”

Gird­har­ry said she start­ed build­ing a struc­ture at the front of her home, but she did not have the mon­ey to com­plete it. With­out the drain, how­ev­er, she was wor­ried that struc­ture would al­so crum­ble.

“I am ask­ing for help. If any­one wants to help or do­nate any­thing to just fix back my place for it to be safe, please do. I do not want to go by any­body. This is my home that I built to be here,” she plead­ed.

Gird­har­ry said al­so vis­it­ed the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self-Help, but was yet to re­ceive the as­sis­tance she longed for.

Con­tact­ed on the mat­ter, Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man Gowrie Roop­nar­ine said he would look in­to Gird­har­ry’s re­quest and reach out to her.

Any­one will­ing to as­sist the fam­i­ly can con­tact 370-8730.