No relief after weeks without water
According to Berea resident Charles De Ravel, he and the residents at an apartment building on Mazisi Kunene Road, have been without water for nearly a month, and the municipality has been unresponsive to their pleas to assess the issue.
BEREA residents on Mazisi Kunene Road, living at a small apartment building called Mount Glen, have been without water for nearly a month. Charles de Ravel, who lives at one of the four apartments in the building, says the residents have been incessantly reaching out to the eThekwini Municipality since February 6, just over a week after the water shut off.
“The water has now been off for 27 days, and it has been an absolute nightmare. After receiving no response from the municipality, we reached out to a plumber who came to assess the problem. Because the main water pipe is municipal property, the plumber we called said he can’t take the job, not only because they can’t interfere with the City’s water pipes but because there are also infrastructural differences between municipal water pipes and plumbing on private properties.”
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De Ravel says that the infrastructure of the apartment building is old and the building was erected in 1972. “The building is so old, even the water meter has not been updated, and that makes it difficult for us to even try to work with the water meter. There are no plumbers who want to take the job, so we just sit and wait, hoping to see a municipal truck arrive to help us with this issue. I understand that there have been serious water issues in other parts of Durban, but after a month, we need some intervention here.”
De Ravel says neighbours have been helping the residents with their plight, but going for so long without water has been extremely difficult. “There are so many basic things that we are unable to do because there is no water. I need water to clean my apartment, to shower and to drink, and the lack of water is compounded by load-shedding. I understand that load-shedding has been going on for years, but we can’t even access water to cool ourselves.”
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The eThekwini Municipality was not available for comment at the time of going to press.
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