Three siblings are worried about the effects of a long-running feud with a neighbour on their prospects of getting employment.
The three Mahlambi brothers of 2nd Avenue whose deceased parents left them a house joined to the neighbour’s, are unemployed and fear they always will be. This after the neighbour hauled them to court and their fingerprints were taken by the police as criminal suspects on allegedly false accusations. Two of them, charged with theft and intimidation were granted bail which was paid for by a local NPO, Peace Builders, an affiliate of the national Action Support Group.
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Brothers, Reggie and Jankie told Alex News that the feud is over the home which the neighbour has allegedly been trying to take over from when their father was still alive. “We were born here and the female neighbour who came in later concocted a strategy to take over the home first, by rearranging the roof causing water to leak into our side presumably to force us out,” Jankie said.
At the time, he said, their dad who was struggling financially, agreed to the arrangement unknowingly only to realise the intention which he couldn’t resolve before he died.
Reggie who stays in Soweto said, “The persecution which is for ulterior motives traumatises and angers us.
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She wants to annex our house and concocted the charges, first claiming that we stole unspecified items after going through a hole in the wall. When she failed to prove to the police she claimed we went through the roof and again the police found no evidence of the allegation.”
He added that after the case was postponed, the neighbour falsely claimed that they pelted her with bricks at the court entrance adding more misery to their plight through the intimidation charge.
Lucia Poko of the NPO called the neighbour’s action cruel, silly and her charges against the siblings without grounds. She said the neighbour also broke the dividing wall several times which the aggrieved family fixed and also did the same on the boundary wall claiming it was for her emergency exit into their side.
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“Her conduct makes them to not respect her and to insult her when she passes by which could instigate the community against her,” Poko said.
She urged the siblings to restrain themselves against any provocation to avoid further trumped-up charges and potential violence. This after they spent 10 days in detention following the arrests.
The neighbour wouldn’t be accessed through the high wall and locked entrance and her telephone details couldn’t be obtained.
