Fire damages abandoned Carletonville house amid illegal activity complaints
Annan Road 3 residents say drugs, suspected stolen goods and illegal occupants plagued property before blaze
Residents in the area of Annan Road 3 in Carletonville complain that many illegal activities take place there.
This house was badly damaged by a fire in the early morning hours of August 24.
According to Merafong’s chief fire officer, Bongani Momosa, they were called to the fire at 02:14.
Although it is not clear what caused the fire, bystanders blamed homeless people staying inside.
Neighbours alerted the Herald to the problems in the house days before the fire, which in its heyday used to be the official house of the West Driefontein mine engineer.
The house stood empty for years and various unsavoury characters, including drug users and sellers and even illegal miners, resided there at times.
During the Herald’s visit on August 19, the rooms and stoeps were covered with feces, junk and clothes as well as goods such as children’s toys that seem to have been stolen. There were various holes in the ceilings, and it was suspected that some of the house’s illegal residents hid in there when bystanders arrived. Noises could be heard from the ceiling during the Herald’s visit.
The huge garden was also full of rubbish, and empty syringes left behind by drug users lay in several places.
The stench was overbearing.
According to neighbours, they had called in the help of Gladiator Community Protection several times to deal with suspected criminals at the property. One of the neighbours says that he met a representative of the Merafong City Local Municipality at the house earlier in the year. As far as he could determine, the house was set to be put on auction because the owner, who stays in Johannesburg, owed the municipality more than R400 000.
“I have tried everything under the sun, including reporting to the SAPS. Police seem not to be bothered by what is going on in that house,” the owner, Jay Govinder, replied when asked about the issues.
He said he disputed the municipal account, claiming that “people working at the municipality want to try and hijack the house.”
Govinder did not reply to questions about what he planned to do with the house now that it has burned down.
The municipality also did not reply to questions about the matter.
