Residents put a lock on “fuse” theft

Bedfordview has been subject to the theft of fuses from electricity boxes in Senderwood and Morninghill recently, leaving residents without power and forced to find solutions to stop the outages.

Senderwood resident Andrew Payne said the power at his house has been on and off for the past five weeks because of fuse theft from the electricity box in his street.

“I was watching television on April 28 and my power went off. As I proceeded to check outside, I saw a guy who walked away from the electricity box in my street.

“I called our security company and then I followed the man down the road. When the security officers arrived they searched the man but found nothing. He must have dropped everything that resembled a fuse before he was searched,” said Payne.

He said that he reported the matter of fuse theft to the metro several times and that the clasps on the electricity boxes in his area were all smashed.

He urged the metro to replace the old boxes with new ones.

“We experience constant flickering of house lights during the night. I contacted our security company to do patrols,” another Senderwood resident, Samantha Sharples, said.

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“Up to about six houses on our street were experiencing the same thing and it was obviously somebody messing with the connections and trying to steal the fuses.

“The power surges make the alarms go off and electric fences send signals to the security company,” said Sharples.

She said that she locked the box and shared the keys with her neighbour.

“There have been no power outages since. We urge all residents to lock the green boxes on their pavements with security-grade padlocks and share the spare keys with your neighbours. Put weather-proof labelling on the box so that council can contact you should they need to access the box,” said Sharples.

Morninghill resident and Morninghill Security Association member Gwen Doran said Morninghill has also experienced power outages in recent weeks.

Doran and the committee are desperately trying to alleviate the problem.

She said the power outages seem to happen just after refuse removal day and that the culprits pretend to be council workers.

Doran said fuses were stolen from electricity boxes in the Morninghill area on April 21, 23, 24 and 28.

Also read: Electricity saving tips for winter

Ward 20 Clr Jill Humphreys said residents want to reinforce the electricity boxes themselves, to avoid the inconvenience of power outages.

“The theft usually happens over weekends, mainly in the Senderwood and Morninghill areas,” said Humphreys.

She said workers from the energy department usually arrive within an hour of an electricity outage and are always on standby over the weekend.

“Residents want to put padlocks on the boxes, but that could create a problem. Which resident will have the key? It will not be an easy solution,” said Humphreys.

She said the area needs new boxes that are more secure because it has become expensive to fix the existing boxes and replace the fuses.

“Although the energy team has been responsive to this problem, the criminal aspect is a new angle that is unforeseen. These are the kinds of things that we cannot blame the metro for,” said Humphreys.

The NEWS sent a request for comment to City of Ekurhuleni on May 2 and asked for a response by close of business due to early deadlines.

At the time of going to print no comment had been received on this enquiry or on a previous enquiry about fuse theft sent a week prior.