“Ons is gatvol!” “We live in a bush!” “We also deserve better living environments!”
These are just some of the cries for help from residents in David Street, Fairleigh, about their living conditions.
Beryl Jacobs has lived in her municipal home for the last 10 years, paying rent, water and lights as a responsible resident. Her plight, like most Fairleigh residents, is being sick and tired of living in the dire circumstances she and her family are subjected to.
“My house is damaged. The walls are cracking, my window frames are falling out and the paint is peeling off the walls!” exclaimed Mrs Jacobs.
Mrs Jacobs said municipal workers came to them during October last year to do renovations to the houses and make them liveable, but have left them in a worse state.
“They just filled the cracks and painted over the old paint. They didn’t even scrape the old paint off first. These guys were completely inexperienced. I had to show the one guy how to use a paintbrush!”
Mrs Jacobs is also worried about the condition of the house’s roof. Apparently, sheets of corrugated iron are loose. To prevent the wind from blowing the sheets off, her husband resorted to packing bricks on it.
She was just as upset about the house’s ceiling which was falling apart and became a nesting ground for pests and rodents.
“We had maggots falling out of the ceiling onto our bed and all we could do was to fill the holes.”
Mrs Jacobs said she attempted to contact the municipality on numerous occasions but claimed she was constantly given a deaf ear, and was told she was ungrateful for the work that had been done.
“Ungrateful? We will be grateful when we receive decent things that are not falling apart. We are not asking for much; we just want to live a little better and feel safer in our homes,” she said.
She thinks it is unfair that the Fairleigh municipal flats are now in a mint condition, but residents in David Street do not get the same service.
“They have been given new baths, sinks, doors, you name it. All we get are cheap washing lines that have already snapped,” she alleged.
She claimed her window frames had fallen out of the walls twice already as they are rusty and old, compromising security. Most of the taps in her house were damaged and leaking water, even though they replaced the washers themselves.
Several other residents also contacted the municipality regarding overgrown grass around their homes. She feared for her children’s safety as well, as they had often found snakes lurking in their yard.
“What is going to happen if one of our children is bitten by a snake? They have not cut this grass for more than three months and it is costing us a lot of money to hire people to help us with this.”
Many other residents are also disgusted about their living conditions and say they cannot bear it any more.
Danny-Boy Cochrane, Mrs Jacobs’s neighbour said he was upset about the lack of respect they received from not only the municipality, but from their ward councillor as well.
“He does not care about us or about how we must live. They expect us to vote, but for what?”
He said his house was left a mess after the ‘so-called’ renovations. The tiles had been cracked and damaged. The lounge floor had caved in and his house had not received the same paint treatment as the others.
“They told me I am a man and could paint my house myself,” said Mr Cochrane.
Another resident, Annie van Blerk is angry because the toilet in her house has been leaking for months, although she often reported it.
“I have had to put my water off completely, because my water and lights account came to over R1000 last month. I don’t have that kind of money. I don’t work and my husband is disabled.”
Chairperson of the Portfolio Standing Committee of Development Planning and Human Settlements, Councillor Matthew Shunmugam said he was aware of the problems in the Fairleigh housing sector. He addressed this in their previous portfolio meeting. He claimed certain steps had to be followed to obtain funding from KZN Human Settlements Department.
“We will follow the correct procedures and contact the National Home Builders Registration Council [NHBRC], and have them come and inspect the houses. After we have their professional feedback, we will then draw up a business plan and take it to the KZN Human Settlements Department for allocation of funds to us.”
Mrs Jacobs hopes answers and resolution will be given soon.
“Just about the entire David Street is a problem. We just want answers; we want to live like everybody else without worrying about our houses collapsing on us,” she concluded.
