A vacant property, 34 Koraalboom Avenue, has become a den of criminals. The contractors who were hired to service and clear up the area are refusing to do so, citing it to be a health hazard. “Working on that property is too risky healthwise and for our safety, because the human waste is everywhere. The men sleeping there may attack us, as they are using the property as their home,” some of them said. They also said the owners are not in the province and hardly ever visit the area.
Meanwhile, residents in the area are demanding that the relevant authorities or the owner must do something about the issue.

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According to them, criminals are using the bushes on the property as a hiding place to break into nearby homes. It is also claimed that vagrants are sleeping in the yard. The property is managed by Gap Management, based in Gauteng, on behalf of Standard Bank. Madelein Steynberg of Gap Management said they are not responsible for cleaning the property, but the bank is, and no one has complained to them about it. “Since it was brought to our attention, we will inform the bank and take it from there,” she said.

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Standard Bank was unavailable for comment by the time of going to press.

The spokesperson for the City of Mbombela, Joseph Ngala, said an owner has a responsibility to clean and maintain his/her property in terms of the municipal land use by-laws. “There are processes to force the owner to clean their property through reporting this matter to the land use division of the municipality.
“A letter will be sent to the owner asking him/her to clean up such property, since it is private land. If access is free, the municipality can clean the property itself and debit such costs to the owner’s tax and rates accounts. If there is no access, the municipality must secure a court order to have access into the property to clean such. This process takes long.”