Maggots have crawled into her bathroom, a giant cockroach landed on her sick sister and mice have crept into her Garcia Flats home thanks to a festering heap of rubbish just metres from her front door.
Former bottle store worker Fayroes Kops, 50, said she could no longer tolerate the unhygienic living conditions at the Cambridge apartment complex where she lives on the ground floor of Block A, right alongside the overflowing garbage skips.
Adding to her woes are residents from the block’s upper floors who fling packets of garbage off their balconies into the rubbish pile below.
When the Daily Dispatch visited the flats on Thursday, rubbish, including roast chicken packets, bread rolls, detergent bags, sausage roll boxes and other junk was swirling around the courtyard outside residents’ front doors.
“I have killed three mice already and on Sunday my kitchen window was black with flies and we had to use the Dispatch to kill them,” said Kops. “I have to keep my windows closed but my shower window has to be open and the maggots crawl into it.”
She said the washing lines situated alongside the skips were encrusted with flies on sunny days.
“I have to swat them away to hang my washing so now I use the laundromat because I don’t want flies on my washing.”
Her sister, Naslie Kops, 53, who lives with her and has just undergone chemotherapy and radiation treatment for cancer, said unhygienic living conditions were endangering her health.
“The other night I felt something fall on me and when I switched the light on I saw it was a giant cockroach. I really want to move into another flat that is not so close to the rubbish.”
The sisters, who live in a neat but cramped one-bedroomed apartment, said the situation was exacerbated by some residents who fling bags of chicken bones and other detritus in the direction of the skips.
Fellow resident Anette Vorster said garbage had not been collected for two weeks.
“We have complained to BCM, but get no response,” said the health worker, who said she had seen large rats at the complex.
“We pay rates and taxes and deserve equal treatment. This is unacceptable. These flats also have overflowing drains and are dangerous because there are no lights in the passages so people get robbed.”
Stephen Lottering, 17, said he had once resorted to hosing the courtyard with a fire hose in a bid to sluice away maggots.
“Living like this is a health risk,” said resident Tracey Keys. “It’s disgusting. I can’t open my door because of the flies and the germs.
“Just because we are poor doesn’t mean we have to live like this.”
Pensioner Lynne Rawlinson, a Garcia Flats resident of 35 years, said garbage used to be collected on a weekly basis, but this had deteriorated in the last three months.
BCM spokesman Thandy Matebese said he had forwarded the Dispatch's queries to the solid waste department, but no response had been received three days later. — barbarah@dispatch.co.za