The family of Durban couple, Matri and Nicholas Molver, who died in their home after a flat next door was fumigated with illegal substances, says waiting up to 10 years for toxicology results before someone is charged for the death won’t cut it.

Nicholas’ brother, Matthew Molver took to social media to share his anger after the family was told by the police that they would have to wait up to 10 years to get toxicology results for his brother and sister-in-law’s cause of death, meaning they might have to wait almost a decade to see the people involved charged.

He wrote: “This is not an ‘ag shame man, poor people’ moment. This is a danger to us all and yet another example of how we are failed at every turn by our institutions in this country. Today it was my family, but it could very easily be yours tomorrow. It’s all abstract and ‘happens to other people’ until you have to identify your dead siblings like I had to, and I hope none of you have to go through that.”

Matri and Nicholas died in their sleep last September.

Preliminary reports indicated that the apartment adjoining the couple’s had been fumigated the day before their death, and the couple may have inhaled a toxic pesticide.

Netcare 911 said its paramedics responded to a suspected chemical exposure at the couple’s home and found them unresponsive in their bed.

Netcare 911’s Shawn Herbst said at the time: “It was established that an adjoining vacant flat had been fumigated using a white, powder-like substance.”

It is believed that the couple may have inhaled a substance banned for residential fumigation.

Fed-up with waiting, the family decided to bypass the government and conduct tests privately, and the results came back positive for aluminium phosphide, a highly toxic inorganic compound with the chemical formula AlP, used as a wideband-gap semiconductor and a fumigant.

Nichols’ mother, Zoë Molver said the test results came back from the private lab within five days instead of the eight to 10 years tabled by the police.

She echoed Matthew’s sentiments that the accident was a result of the reckless negligence of strangers.

“South Africans have become so reckless from the smallest thing like skipping a robot, which by the way caused Nicholas’ first accident and serious injury. We want to raise an awareness that random recklessness can kill people, not just for us but for the community at large.”

Matthew added that the family will not give up until justice is served.

“We will not roll over. We will not give up. The only way we can see any movement on this and the only way anybody will actually take any notice is by shouting this from the rooftops and keeping it alive in the media. Then maybe we can start solving this issue and help not just my family, but thousands of others who have gone through stuff like this, and will go through this in the future.”

Pest Control Federation of South Africa vice-president Moses Chetty said the federation distances itself from the unlicensed operator.

“What he did was beyond comprehension, he had no idea what the toxins he was using contained.”

Chetty said the fumigant used in this case was highly dangerous and should only be used in silos and preferably for agricultural use.

The KZN police did not provide comment on this case, but had previously indicated that inquest dockets were being investigated.

According to Zoë, the investigations have moved rapidly with the assistance of a private investigator who was assisting the police.

The couple would have celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary this year.