However, the metro restored the water sooner than expected.
“At 11pm, we had no water to bathe or flush the toilets with,” he says.
Metro spokesman Themba Gadebe says a team of technicians attended to the complaint and the water supply was successfully restored on Wednesday afternoon.
Taljaard checked the water meter situated outside their premises and noticed a low-battery message.
Read: Metro’s water meter project will eradicate water loss
He immediately reported the problem to the metro call centre.
The first operator he spoke to informed him that the standby workers had worked late and would only start working again at 6am.
“I explained to her that we have five children and cannot wait until 6am for the water to return,” says Taljaard.
The second time was on Wednesday morning, but the operator refused to assist him because he couldn’t provide his account number.
“Third time lucky,” he thought, and called the centre again, only this time he was informed that he has to wait between four and 24 hours from logging the complaint before metro workers would respond.
Read: Metro appoints water ambassadors as part of long-term programme
“What do I do in the meantime,” he asked her.
However, his fear of being without water was short-lived as metro workers arrived at 1pm on Wednesday to fix the low-battery problem.
“They did tell me that contractors will have to replace the water meter.
“At least we had water,” he says.
Taljaard’s wife Patsy arrived at home on Wednesday afternoon and found metro workers looking at the meter.
One of the workers asked her who installed the new water meter as they were supposed to have waited for days for the new meter.
“Thank goodness the new meter was installed without us having to wait four days,” she says.
The metro apologised for the inconvenience caused.
