Residents of the Moot have recently taken circumstances into their own hands after crime has “spiralled out of control” in the area.
The residents started a neighbourhood watch in an attempt to fight back against criminals.
East Lynne resident Rodwell Kwonglee said residents experienced crime in the area on a daily basis.
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Another resident, Roelof Erasmus, who was also recently a victim of a burglary, said he and his wife feared daily for their lives.
“We couldn’t sleep at all at night,” he said.
Erasmus said that most of the criminals came from the nearby stream running through the neighbourhood.
“The bushes are very overgrown and when we decided to investigate, we saw that vagrants even had a tent set up with a couch,” he said.
He said suspicious people regularly walked through the neighbourhood and made use of the passageways between the houses to the stream.
Founder of the initiative, Kwonglee said the project was established about two weeks ago.
“We just couldn’t go on like that anymore,” he said.
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He said there were at least two vehicles patrolling throughout the day on a 24-hour basis.
Kwonglee said residents who did patrols also had a two-way radio.
He said the project was funded entirely by residents.
“There is almost no one who is not involved – each person contributes in their own way even though they cannot patrol themselves,” he said.
“One of the residents even told me I could use her vehicle and petrol to patrol.”
The residents have created a WhatsApp group to keep each other informed of what is happening in the neighbourhood.
Kwonglee said that since the project started, crime has decreased in the area.
Kwonglee said future plans for the project were underway.
“We would like to hire guards and get more patrol vehicles,” he said.
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