--- title: "Maricarmen Abascal, evicted at 87 from her Madrid flat, dies before she could go home" description: "Two weeks after police carried her out on a stretcher, her death reaches a Spain heading for a general strike and an early election" author: "Jan Sokol" published: 2026-10-08T10:48:41Z modified: 2026-10-08T13:43:45Z url: https://rews.cc/a/maricarmen-abascal-evicted-at-87-from-her-madrid-flat-dies-b-db1096 language: en tags: ["housing", "protests", "politics", "economy", "evictions", "europe"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Maricarmen Abascal, evicted at 87 from her Madrid flat, dies before she could go home *Two weeks after police carried her out on a stretcher, her death reaches a Spain heading for a general strike and an early election* By Jan Sokol · October 8, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/maricarmen-abascal-evicted-at-87-from-her-madrid-flat-dies-b-db1096 ## In brief - María del Carmen “Maricarmen” Abascal, 87, died in hospital on Wednesday, two weeks after her eviction from her Madrid flat - She had lived in the Retiro flat since 1956; her rent was raised from €500 to €2,650 a month, according to CNN - A deal on a new lease letting her return was reached on September 28, but she was too ill to sign it - Unions have called a 24-hour general strike for November 11, ahead of the snap election on November 29 - Pedro Sánchez called her “a symbol”; Alberto Núñez Feijóo warned against using her death for political gain María del Carmen Abascal lived in the same Madrid flat for seven decades. She died on Wednesday in a hospital bed and never went back to it. Her lawyer, Beatriz Duro, confirmed the death, [Al Jazeera reported](https://aljazeera.com/gallery/2026/10/8/photos-protests-erupt-after-87-year-old-evicted-woman-dies-in-madrid) with AFP and AP. She was 87. Most of Spain knew her simply as Maricarmen. Her last weeks fit in a few lines. The Madrid Tenants’ Union, which announced her death, said she was evicted on September 23 and had been in hospital ever since, [according to CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/07/europe/maricarmen-spain-eviction-crisis-dies-intl-latam). That is fifteen days between the stretcher and the end. ## The flat in Retiro She had lived in the apartment, in Madrid’s Retiro district, since 1956. She was disabled. The building belonged to a private investment company, and after a long court fight with the real estate firm Urbagestión, her rent went from €500 to €2,650 a month, CNN reported. Her pension could not cover it. Outlets describe the jump differently. [The Irish Times](https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2026/10/07/evicted-spanish-pensioner-at-heart-of-spains-housing-protests-has-died/) called it a 230 per cent rise, and [another Al Jazeera report](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/7/spanish-unions-call-general-strike-over-housing-before-snap-election) gave it as more than 200 percent, to roughly $1,880 a month. By CNN’s figures the new rent was more than five times the old one. Activists said the point was to get her out so the flat could be let again at a higher price. Hundreds of people came to her door to try to stop it. They failed. The country then watched television footage of police carrying an old woman out on a stretcher from the place she had lived since before most of them were born. A reflection, and only that: an eviction order is written in the passive voice. Nobody evicts anyone. A person is evicted. A fund raises a rent, a court rules, a bailiff comes to the door, and each of them does only a small part of the job, so that in the end the harm seems to belong to no one. ## Too late On September 28, five days after the eviction, a deal was reached with the company that owned the flat to let her [return under a new lease](https://rews.cc/a/evicted-madrid-pensioner-87-to-return-home-under-new-lease-6fce7c). By CNN’s account, she was too ill to sign it. Housing groups said the agreement came “too late” after a “harrowing ordeal”. Duro said the activists were devastated. She called the eviction “shameful violence” that showed “the impact it can have on people’s health”. The union’s spokeswoman, Alicia del Río, was blunter: “Speculation costs lives, and today rent profiteering has finished killing our colleague Maricarmen.” ## From one doorway to the whole country Spaniards were already angry before September 23. Madrid’s regional premier, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, had drawn criticism for buying a luxury penthouse. Earlier in September an evicted woman, Olga Matute, had taken her own life in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. The removal of Maricarmen set that anger moving. A camp of [hundreds of tents](https://rews.cc/a/one-hundred-and-fifty-tents-for-maricarmen-the-siege-of-puer-5fcb4e) went up in Puerta del Sol, and the protests spread to dozens of other cities. The government of Pedro Sánchez tried to answer with two royal decree-laws. Last Friday Congress [voted both down](https://rews.cc/a/spain-s-parliament-rejects-housing-decrees-as-protests-sprea-c71ab5). According to [Spain in English](https://www.spainenglish.com/2026/10/07/spains-housing-crisis-prompts-general-strike-on-11-november-ahead-of-election/), they included a moratorium on evictions, a ban on vulture funds, automatic extension of rental contracts and limits on temporary and room rentals. On Monday Sánchez called a general election for November 29, nine months early. He is betting that the public anger will turn into a bigger progressive majority for his Socialists. The streets set their own date. The Tenants’ Union confederation, along with UGT, CCOO, CGT, Solidaridad Obrera and Co.Bas, [ratified a 24-hour general strike](https://www.democrata.es/en/economy/unions-maintain-the-call-for-a-general-strike-for-housing-on-november-11/) for Wednesday, November 11. [The Local reported](https://www.thelocal.es/20261008/what-to-know-about-spains-general-strike-in-november) that it is the first time since 2012 that the big unions have thrown their full weight behind a general strike. The employers’ groups CEOE and Cepyme called it “inadmissible” and argued that housing is not a workplace issue. The People’s Party and Vox also attacked it. ## The numbers behind one name Average rent in Spain has almost doubled in ten years. The government says more than a quarter of tenants spend about 40 percent of their income on housing and utilities, more than double the EU average. Behind that figure are many other flats, many other doors and many other rent letters nobody has heard of. ## Condolences Sánchez led the tributes online and called her “a symbol” of renters struggling to afford a home. On X he wrote: “All my love to Maricarmen’s family and loved ones. … Rest in peace.” The conservative opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, also sent condolences, asked for “respect” and warned against using her death for political gain. Both men are now campaigning in an election that her eviction helped bring about. Near parliament, protesters chanted: “Maricarmen lives. The fight goes on!” The lease that would have taken her home had been drawn up. She never signed it.