Along standing family feud resulted in a Parkridge home being demolished and 25 women, children and men left in the open on Thursday night.
This was after a local pastor ordered that the Marigold Street house be torn down.
Pastor Johnnie Swartbooi, of the Ephesian Gospel Mission Church in Buffalo Flats, confirmed he had bought the house and ordered the demolition.
A bulldozer took down a brick house, but when it dawned on residents they were under attack, they rallied around four remaining shacks.
“That is my property, I bought it and they are illegal tenants,” Pastor Swartbooi said.
“My plan is to build a structure for church-related matters and I will be going there later to evict the rest of them,” he said. The family home was shared by five siblings and their families. They claimed it was inherited by their sister Joanna Daniels.
Daniels became emotional when Saturday Dispatch arrived and spoke to her husband, Joseph.
He said he and his wife had decided to sell the property for R60000 to the pastor.
They said Swartbooi instructed that the house and four shacks be demolished, and on Thursday, the bulldozer arrived with four police vehicles to evict the more than 25 family members.
Ingrid Wyngaard, who lives on the property with her six children, said: “We were served an eviction notice in July and had 21 days to get out of the house. But we had nowhere to go so we stayed.
“They came here with the police and a big bulldozer, telling us to get our things out of the house or they will remove it for us.
“While we were trying to get some of the furniture out they just started bulldozing.”
When the Saturday Dispatch arrived at the house, the distraught family members’ belongings were lying under concrete bricks.
An emotional Joyce Standard said she could not blame her sister for selling the house because she “is not on her medication”.
Joseph said they were within their rights to sell the house and he was in support of a church being built. — oriellya@tisoblackstar.co.za
Pastor bulldozed house down
This was after a local pastor ordered that the Marigold Street house be torn down.
Pastor Johnnie Swartbooi, of the Ephesian Gospel Mission Church in Buffalo Flats, confirmed he had bought the house and ordered the demolition.
A bulldozer took down a brick house, but when it dawned on residents they were under attack, they rallied around four remaining shacks.
“That is my property, I bought it and they are illegal tenants,” Pastor Swartbooi said.
“My plan is to build a structure for church-related matters and I will be going there later to evict the rest of them,” he said. The family home was shared by five siblings and their families. They claimed it was inherited by their sister Joanna Daniels.
Daniels became emotional when Saturday Dispatch arrived and spoke to her husband, Joseph.
He said he and his wife had decided to sell the property for R60000 to the pastor.
They said Swartbooi instructed that the house and four shacks be demolished, and on Thursday, the bulldozer arrived with four police vehicles to evict the more than 25 family members.
Ingrid Wyngaard, who lives on the property with her six children, said: “We were served an eviction notice in July and had 21 days to get out of the house. But we had nowhere to go so we stayed.
“They came here with the police and a big bulldozer, telling us to get our things out of the house or they will remove it for us.
“While we were trying to get some of the furniture out they just started bulldozing.”
When the Saturday Dispatch arrived at the house, the distraught family members’ belongings were lying under concrete bricks.
An emotional Joyce Standard said she could not blame her sister for selling the house because she “is not on her medication”.
Joseph said they were within their rights to sell the house and he was in support of a church being built. — oriellya@tisoblackstar.co.za
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