Post office now a home for vagrants

Residents complain that the premises are dirty due to the vagrants, while post boxes have apparently been vandalised.

Vagrants store their blankets and stay in front of the post office.

The Advertiser regularly reports on vagrants in Boksburg.

Although the EMPD removes and relocates vagrants, buildings are often taken over as makeshift places of residence.

The Boksburg post office in Leeuwpoort Street is an example of this.

The post boxes used by hundreds of residents for many years are getting more difficult to access due to the presence of vagrants.

In 2015, the Advertiser reported on the seven-week project of the DA to keep the environment at the Boksburg post office clean. Such a cleanup effort also took place the following year.

The barriers to keep vagrants out of the post office have just been damaged.

DA Ward 32 branch chairperson Marius de Vos confirmed the post office was at the time well looked after, but this is no longer the case.

According to him, the state of the premises at the post office have worsened.

“It is a total disgrace. This is a public entity supposed to deliver postal services to the community, but has become an informal settlement,” said De Vos.

The state of decay at the Boksburg post office as a result of vagrancy.

He is also concerned over complaints that posted material is tampered with.

One resident said that the state of the post office is disgusting. “I pay tax and for the post box every year, yet I have to go through the smell of urine twice a week to get my post.”