MORNINGSIDE resident, Achim Johl was chatting to his wife on Skype on Sunday afternoon, 6 October, when a loud noise disturbed them and he went outside to see what was going on.
To Johl’s surprise and dismay he saw a group of people break through his locked front gate and onto his property on Lilian Ngoyi Road.
He said at about 3pm on the day he had noticed through his lounge window, a group of around 30 people gathered on the island adjacent to his home.
“They were well dressed, around a third of them were women, and there were five cars parked over the road from them. The people were talking but I didn’t think much of it at the time. I then went to speak to my wife on Skype on the other side of the house, when I heard a noise outside,” he said.
On hearing voices and the noise, Johl said he went out onto the balcony and saw people from the group trying to enter his secured property. He said he watched as they used bolt cutters to cut through the locks on the front gate and forcibly bashed out another lock embedded in the gate.
“I went to tell my wife what was happening, and when I looked again the people were already in our yard. I shouted telling them to leave and they wanted to know if I was the owner. I told them it was none of their business, and told them to leave, or I would call the police,” he said.
Johl said he was carrying a tablet to show his wife what was happening and believes the people who had invaded his property may have thought he was taking photos of them, and they quickly dispersed.
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Afterwards he went to inspect the damage and saw the front gate had been damaged and the lock had been cut by the bolt cutters. He noticed the people who had gained access to the back of the property had overturned his work bench.
“I called the police but was told to let them know if the people returned,” he said.
Johl said a week later he read an article in a daily newspaper about members of a business forum who were at loggerheads with eThekwini Municipality over derelict buildings it wanted converted into houses for students and offices for black-owned businesses. He said the rundown buildings mentioned in the article were situated in areas such as Windermere, Morningside and Durban North, some municipal-owned, while others were privately owned.
He said the article made him wonder if these were the same people who had trespassed on his property.
He said it had seemed to him that the people had come onto his property to look around and never suspected that there was anyone in the house.
“My wife’s parents bought the property in 1964 and we are still in residence here after so many years. Our house might look derelict to others from the outside, but it is not. After reading the article, I went to the police station with photos of the forced entry and the article which I felt could be proof of the culprits’ identity. I opened a case and was told it would be investigated, but I doubt anything will come of it as there is no evidence,” said Johl.
He said he merely wanted to warn people in the area of this incident, and for others to be aware of what was happening.
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