Dispute among Arabs – now family must move out
A dispute over a power outage in Vienna’s Favoriten district escalated into a physical confrontation and a court battle. Now, a mother and her two sons must leave their apartment after the court upheld the termination of their tenancy.
The conflict began on May 16, 2025, when the electricity suddenly went out throughout the residential building. The manager of a bakery operating on the ground floor and one of his employees went to the building’s fuse box to investigate the problem.
The tenant, an Iraqi woman and mother of two, later arrived home after her son told her about the outage. When she saw the two men at the fuse box, her son also came downstairs. According to the court, the mother and son accused the bakery manager of stealing electricity and allegedly shouted at him.
The woman then called the police over the suspected electricity theft. The argument reportedly escalated, with the son allegedly grabbing the bakery manager by his collar and physically confronting him. A worker who was carrying out gas-pipe work in the basement heard the commotion and intervened to separate the two men.
When police arrived, the physical confrontation had already ended. The bakery manager, who is of Syrian origin, initially did not report the alleged assault. According to the court, he was deeply shaken and feared further conflict within the Arab community.
The incident continued to affect him after the confrontation. He reportedly became so afraid that he no longer felt comfortable going alone to his business. Months later, he told his lawyer about the incident, prompting the lawyer to contact the landlord and demand measures to protect his client.
The family presented a different version of events in court. The mother claimed that the bakery manager had grabbed and shaken her son first, and that her son had only reacted in self-defense. The court rejected this account, citing contradictions in the statements given by the mother and her son.
The Bezirksgericht Favoriten (Favoriten District Court) ultimately ruled in favor of the termination of the tenancy. The family must leave the apartment by mid-September and was also ordered to pay €5,229.88 in legal costs.
The family says it is now struggling to find another home. The son told Heute that social organizations had also been unable to provide assistance and claimed they were at risk of becoming homeless.