Residents are fed-up over huge rats, vagrants and smelly rubbish plaguing a street in East London’s Southernwood after a property was left abandoned by its owners.
The now dilapidated structure in Rose Garden Lane in Southernwood, was left to ruin after the owners vacated it in the early 2000s.
Once the property had become overgrown with weeds and uncut grass, it quickly became a dumping ground for building and household rubbish, neighbour Bronwyn Preston said.
The illegal dumping has resulted in a terrible stench, Preston said, with huge rats scaling the fence and scurrying onto their property.
“We have rats the size of cats coming into our house daily,” Preston said yesterday.
“I can hear them walking around in our ceiling. We cut the lawn as short as possible to try and discourage them but it’s not working. My husband and I actually spend more money on rat poison than we do on bread,” she said.
Funiwe Sihlwayi, who lives across the street from the property, said their house was recently burgled and suspected the culprits had hid in the overgrown bush on the abandoned property to plan the burglary.
“We lost a TV, a DVD player and the spare key to one of our cars. The really scary thing is that we don’t know if they will be coming back to try and take the car,” she said.
Sihlwayi said has had to fight off the huge rats.
“They scratch the furniture and the wooden floors,” she said.
Ronaldo Luiters said he had taken it upon himself to head up a neighbourhood cleaning campaign.
“But it’s not easy, because people dump all sorts of things here. From mattresses to old TVs and food. People also come here in their bakkies and dump building rubble.”
Buffalo City Metro spokesman Thandy Matebese, said in the past two years, the metro had sent two notices to the last registered property owner.
In one of the notices, sent on April 2 last year, BCM’s environmental health manager identifies the erf as being over-grown and used as dumping site by local residents.
“These conditions are in contravention of Chapter 2, Section 6 pertaining to overgrown properties as stipulated in the Buffalo City Municipal Environmental Health By-laws published under PN 2459 dated 22 October 2010 in relation to the prevention and suppression of health nuisances,” the notice reads.
The owner was given 30 days to clear the overgrown property, but this had not yet been done.
“The process now underway is to refer the matter to the legal advisor’s office for further action to be taken,” Matebese said. — zisandan@dispatch.co.za
Residents fight off ‘rats the size of cats’
The now dilapidated structure in Rose Garden Lane in Southernwood, was left to ruin after the owners vacated it in the early 2000s.
Once the property had become overgrown with weeds and uncut grass, it quickly became a dumping ground for building and household rubbish, neighbour Bronwyn Preston said.
The illegal dumping has resulted in a terrible stench, Preston said, with huge rats scaling the fence and scurrying onto their property.
“We have rats the size of cats coming into our house daily,” Preston said yesterday.
“I can hear them walking around in our ceiling. We cut the lawn as short as possible to try and discourage them but it’s not working. My husband and I actually spend more money on rat poison than we do on bread,” she said.
Funiwe Sihlwayi, who lives across the street from the property, said their house was recently burgled and suspected the culprits had hid in the overgrown bush on the abandoned property to plan the burglary.
“We lost a TV, a DVD player and the spare key to one of our cars. The really scary thing is that we don’t know if they will be coming back to try and take the car,” she said.
Sihlwayi said has had to fight off the huge rats.
“They scratch the furniture and the wooden floors,” she said.
Ronaldo Luiters said he had taken it upon himself to head up a neighbourhood cleaning campaign.
“But it’s not easy, because people dump all sorts of things here. From mattresses to old TVs and food. People also come here in their bakkies and dump building rubble.”
Buffalo City Metro spokesman Thandy Matebese, said in the past two years, the metro had sent two notices to the last registered property owner.
In one of the notices, sent on April 2 last year, BCM’s environmental health manager identifies the erf as being over-grown and used as dumping site by local residents.
“These conditions are in contravention of Chapter 2, Section 6 pertaining to overgrown properties as stipulated in the Buffalo City Municipal Environmental Health By-laws published under PN 2459 dated 22 October 2010 in relation to the prevention and suppression of health nuisances,” the notice reads.
The owner was given 30 days to clear the overgrown property, but this had not yet been done.
“The process now underway is to refer the matter to the legal advisor’s office for further action to be taken,” Matebese said. — zisandan@dispatch.co.za
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