Dannhauser deals with the criminal hot-spots and hideouts
Municipality cleans up crime hotspots
Overgrown grass and abandoned houses are becoming a help and a haven for criminals in Dannhauser.
So say the newly formed neighbourhood night watch, who patrol through the town every night.
Members of the watch say the state of the town is making their jobs a lot harder.
Overgrown grass in numerous areas has become easy hiding spots for criminals as they seek to evade capture. “When you’re chasing a guy at night, they can easily run into the long grass and you can’t find them in there,” said one member. Abandoned homes are also playing a major part in the criminal element. Thieves use the homes as hideouts, either to store stolen goods or to scout potential targets from.
Community Services Manager, Seva Naidoo, said that since the group approached him, 80% to 90% of their concerns have been seen too. Numerous areas where grass was overgrown have since been cut. Mr Naidoo did add however, that some of the plots were privately owned and so the onus fell on the owners to keep these clean.
The issue of abandoned houses, however, isn’t as simple as just knocking them down. Once again, owners of the properties were responsible for them.
The municipality can only step in if they have exhausted all means of attempting to contact the owners to see to their property. The matter is then passed over to council who decide whether the buildings should be demolished. Mr Naidoo admitted that there were some areas that got out of control but that the community service department was doing the best it could with limited resources.
The department is tasked with seeing to Dannhauser, Durnacol and Hattingspruit as well as all the outlying areas that the municipality covers. It’s a massive area to be covered that is made up of 11 wards.
“We are here to work with the community but they need to play their part as well,” Mr Naidoo said. He urged residents to stop dumping illegally in town and the residential areas and to make use of skip bins provided to them.
Mr Naidoo also urged residents to make use of the landfill site in Durnacol to dump their cut down trees and other waste, instead of dumping them in town.
