Inge Jones, the former owner of the controversial 710 Jarvis St. house at the centre of a day care centre dispute, wants the Whitehorse public to know she is not dead.

Jones says she is disappointed with the way her donation of the house has been discussed in the media, which have also been calling her 'deceased.'

The confusion about her supposed death arose after the Yukon Hospital Foundation told reporters last month the owner of the residence had died and Jones' name showed up on the land title.

It is actually her daughter, Desiree Wagerer, who is deceased, and the house was donated in her name.

Jones, who now resides in Langley, B.C., is upset about reports labelling her home as a drug house and the messy details of how it was kept.

She told the Star this morning she called the RCMP twice about the house after receiving frightening phone calls from her daughter saying people were in her home and had locked her out.

' There was people there, I can't get into my house,'' Jones said, repeating her daughter's words.

Jones said police told her the house was under observation.

She called the RCMP again but soon afterward received a call from Vancouver police saying her daughter was dead.

At the time of Wagerer's death, drug addicts, who Jones said begged her daughter to stay there, were already living in the house.

Wagerer also used drugs and died from an overdose, said Jones.

The drug addicts in the house had heard a thump from downstairs and found Wagerer unconscious and naked on the floor upstairs, after falling during a shower. They left her there, said Jones. Police later found Wagerer dead in her bed.

'She was artistic, she was gentle, she was kind and loving.'

Wagerer, then 49, would have died even without the overdose, said Jones. She had blood poisoning from an injury on her leg.

'I remember the good things and I still feel her she did not get taken away, or drown in the river I know that she died in her bedroom finally, in that house that I built with her.'

Jones had just finished making the last mortgage payment near the time of Wagerer's death.

Jones was in shock when she first heard her daughter had died and wondered if she had been murdered.

Wagerer was on social assistance due to a wrist injury that kept her from typing and impacted her housekeeping abilities, said Jones.

'She couldn't work, couldn't type or write, her housekeeping wasn't wonderful. She had a broken wrist, re-broken years later and a metal part inside her (wrist) that (slipped.) It was a mess; she didn't get the good care.

'It would have bothered me to use the money to build a big house, a wonderful house. So the house, I didn't want it anymore, the money was earned too hard to use it for anything else.'

So Jones decided to donate the house to the hospital in her daughter's name. She was told donating her house was a good example.

'And that's what I did; I donated it in her name.

'I wanted to do some good, and that's all I did, and what comes out of it, people are insulting me and insulting my daughter. I laugh about a house without walls (I built the walls), and the newspapers say I am dead already, it's got me up in arms.'

(Lori Austin, the home's current owner who wants to turn it into a day care centre, has said the house doesn't have walls.)

Jones bought the house when her daughter moved to Whitehorse.

It looked cozy but was sagging and too close to the street, she said.

Jones moved it and put it on a new foundation. Later, another floor was added. The house was also renovated to make it larger.

What has been described as a lack of interior walls is actually an element of the open design concept Jones used to maximize the light coming in the house.

She said she now wonders what kind of example her generous donation gives to others who may be considering a similar gift to the hospital.

� Jones herself does not drink nor use drugs.

'I don't (even)� smoke. I'm very boring. I just read books.

'When people do drink, they're boring. They talk and talk about nothing and forget what they said afterwards.'