EDITOR – I am one of the owners of a Bluff house.
We fixed the house with paint, and a lot of new things like a stove, oven, kitchen cupboards, front door, kitchen door and carport at the back.
The garden was always neat and the grass cut. Then the day came we had to leave this little house of ours and rent another in Rustenburg, for work opportunities. The decision was made to rent out the house instead of selling. What a bad mistake.
At first we had good renters who paid regularly, but they decided to move.
Then we got renters straight out of hell. They paid now and then, while sending messages about break-ins at the house with photos of the outside doors kicked down. Needless to say, we never got the police CAS numbers but always the reminders to send money to fix the doors or the stove plates. The day we finally got rid of them, they were behind in rent, water and lights. Arriving at the house after a year, we found it in a very bad state, with the inner doors kicked in, the new kitchen sink cupboards swollen from water spillage, the house filthy, cockroaches having a field day and the grass uncut in about a year. Nobody was interested in renting the house because of the state it was in.
Then this couple, apparently from somewhere in the Cape, was desperate and did not mind renting. We bought paint and start fixing all the damages but we had only a couple of days before Christmas to finish this job. The renters offered to finish painting and cut the grass. They signed a contract to pay R5,000 a month and up to date we have only received R1,000. The amount due is about R20,000. We stopped paying the municipality for services, and they disconnected the electricity but the renters broke the seal and continued using electricity. Now these people are threatening us with squatter rights.
The house still belongs to the bank and we are renting it out to try cover the bond payments. We are not rich, just working for a decent living.
The question is what do you do in such a case? You are about a 1,000kms from your home, also staying in someone else’s house where you have to pay otherwise you get kicked out. Do you rent thugs to help you get rid of these people? Do you stop paying your bond and leave it to the bank to get rid of them or do you sue the government for loss of property due to their new rulings? What about the municipality that came up with the new rule that the water and lights problem is the owner’s and not the renters’? When you stop paying you get sued but the renters can break the seals and go on hiking your account. Is there a place you can brand these people so the next person does not fall in the same trap?
