ELBIE ORFFER writes:
I have been a resident of Kempton Park since 1969.
We moved from Pretoria and stayed in a beautiful old house on Maxwell Street. I was in St 5 then.
What a pleasure it was. Clean gardens, streets and sidewalks. Beautiful flowers in all the gardens.
We moved to Kempton Park West, what a pleasure. Small, neat little homes, beautiful sidewalks, clean streets. In fact, my parents won the title most beautiful garden in 1971.
My point being, what happened to our town?
It now resembles a glorified trash dump. We own our own home in the older part of Kempton, Swart Street, to be precise, for 14 years. The deterioration of our town is unbelievable.
I walk my dog some mornings and what I see, is heart breaking. The disgusting flyers glued to all lamp posts, electricity boxes, trash cans, everywhere it is nauseating to say the least.
Rubbish piling up on sidewalks, not even properly stashed into bags, vile urine smells near electricity boxes and some walls. Stolen and broken cement covers on storm water drains, blocked storm water drains, water damming in streets, not flowing anywhere.
Sidewalks are a mess, you have to walk in the street for fear of broken glass or other obstacles. Empty bottles and food containers are just left on sidewalks.
Trees are not cut, some branches are hanging so low you have to duck to avoid it, they are getting too tall to control.
Electricity box doors tied with piece of rope. Chickens running loose in the street, roosters crowing their bronchial lungs out anytime from 3.30am in the morning.
What happened to pride of your environment? What happened to consideration of others? Why do we still put our plastic, paper, tins and glass out to be removed by the municipality? Why does the municipality not provide containers at certain points for these? Is it really so difficult?
I have containers in my yard, where I separate glass, tin and plastic. A woman comes now and then to collect. She is paying her children’s school fees with this “rubbish” you just throw away.
Paper gets collected every week in a provided bag. Why are there so many car wash facilities that do not recycle their water? Doesn’t this bother anyone at all?
Who is responsible for to see to these matters? Does anybody know? In this time and age one would think that people would be more conscious of matters around them. I am ashamed of what our town has became.
