Families continue to live in basement

It has been 10 years and counting for Ms Nozipho Dlamini and her family, who live in the basement and boiler rooms of the Bertrams Council Flats.

The EXPRESS has previously reported on people living in the basement and boiler rooms for several years.

Ms Dlamini said she moved into the basement in 2005 when she relocated from KwaZulu-Natal.

“I came to the ‘City of Gold’ to try and find a job. Although we have most of the appliances a woman needs to run a household, living here is not easy,” said Ms Dlamini.

She registered for an RDP house in 2006 and was later advised to apply again in 2008.

“The conditions here are not good. There are no windows. Sometimes it gets unbearably hot but we cannot do anything. We have to close the doors as there is limited safety here. There is no running water or a sewerage system. When we need to use a bathroom, we have to go to our neighbours who have flats,” said Ms Dlamini.

Sewage is constantly running in front of her door, and she and other residents, together with their children, have to walk through the sewage.

“When we reported it to the City of Johannesburg’s (CoJ) officials, they did nothing. The only thing they did was come and plant trees. They do nothing about our plight. The water is constantly leaking from sewage pipes here,” said Ms Dlamini.

In 2006, the EXPRESS reported that Ms Dlamini, and 20 people living in similar conditions, were promised houses.

The ward 66 councillor, Clr Carlos da Rocha, said he has been dealing with the problem since he became a councillor. He said even his predecessor dealt with it.

“These are council flats and council is supposed to maintain them and do repairs. I have had members of the mayoral committee here. The mayor has come here. Recently I had the MMC for housing here. I was promised that these problems would be attended to. Two months after these promises, nothing has happened and instead it continues to get worse,” he said.

“The status of these flats is bad. People dump their human waste into the drain. The system is constantly blocked. It is worse for the people who live in the basement. They crawl into their ‘houses’,” said Clr Da Rocha.

He said the water meter at the entrance has been broken for the past five years.

“I probably reported it a thousand times. Nothing has happened since. Water is just oozing out day and night. This joins the frequent sewage leaks that occurr. It is bad that the poor have to be treated like this,” said Clr Da Rocha.

An inquiry was sent to the Johannesburg Property Company on October 14, with a request for comment by October 15 at 10am.

At the time of going to print, no comment had been received.