Electrically sensitive refugee moves to rural Portugal

A Danish woman and her husband had to flee wireless Denmark. They eventually settled in an area of Portugal where other electrically sensitive people already lived.

Keywords: electrical sensitivity, refugee, white zone, low radiation area, tower refugee, Portugal

When Ditte got sick with MCS, she was able to keep living in the apartment she shared with her husband in central Copenhagen, Denmark.

Some years later she also became electrically sensitive. Then Copenhagen no longer worked for her. People in Denmark were early adopters of the wireless revolution and the city council had no problems with the city becoming plastered with mobile phone transmitters on towers and rooftops.

Ditte moved to the family's vacation cottage about a hundred kilometers outside the city. This worked for some time, but Denmark is a densely populated country. Even when walking in a forest preserve she ran into transmitters. When new neighbors moved in, the situation became unbearable.

Out of Denmark

The couple had lived and worked in other countries before, but they never thought they would ever have to leave Denmark as refugees. They started looking elsewhere, as long as they could reach it by car. Air travel was no longer possible.

They contacted any "low EMF" or "white zone" they could find around Europe. Some didn't reply, the rest reported increasing development in their area.

The couple spent several months travelling around Europe. They looked for areas that gave a low reading on their RF meter and didn't have much of an electrical grid.

They focused on Spain and northern Italy, but they were not able to find something they could afford.

Portugal

After six or seven months of frustrating travel, and feeling like a hunted animal, Ditte's husband found a house for sale listed on the internet. It was in Portugal in an area they had already visited and found promising.

It was an old stone house. The lot was 3.5 hectares (7 acres) of fertile land with olive trees, cherries, pears and tangerines. Water came from an old artesian well. The house sat empty for five years, so they knew no pesticides had been used recently.

The house was inside a nature preserve. The statutes made it illegal to build any more houses, except on lots that already had a house or a ruin on it. This way they were guaranteed a big buffer zone around the house.

The house was smaller than what they wanted and the ceiling on the ground floor was so low that Ditte's husband could not stand fully upright in some places. It also needed a lot of repairs, including a leaky roof. But it was affordable, so they bought it.

Settling in

They had to live in a tent for the first couple of months, while the most important repairs were done, such as the leaky roof. More work needs to be done, but it is difficult to find building contractors in the area.

The telephone line was in bad shape, but the phone company installed a new cable with copper wires. Telephone land lines are still the norm there.

Rural Portugal is one of the least developed parts of Western Europe. But shortly after the Danish couple had settled in, a new tower was erected not far away. Fortunately it was on the other side of a big hill, which shields the house from the radiation.

Organic food is scarce there. They buy what they can find at local farmers markets and the trees on their own land supply them with olive oil and fruit. They plan on having a vegetable garden soon.

Other electrically sensitive people have moved to rural Portugal. There is no local patient organization, but the couple have run into a couple by coincidence.

Other stories

Other stories about people with environmental sensitivities are available on www.eiwellspring.org/facesandstories.html

2020