Leonie Bronkhorst and her family were rudely awoken last Monday night as a tree crashed into their Pine Avenue home’s boundary wall, snapping their electric fence.
The tree had fallen as a result of the terrible storm that ripped through the suburb.
“I was furious as I had asked for this tree and several others to be removed as they had become dangerous. But the metro had ignored my requests,” she said.
Bronkhorst went to the metro’s customer care centre in the CBD to report the matter and get the tree removed, and was shocked when she was informed that it was not the metro’s responsibility to remove the tree.
“The man was so rude to me and said it wasn’t the metro’s problem,” she explained.
“They don’t care that we now face a security problem as we are unable to use our electric fence or that our insurance company is unable to begin repairs until the tree is removed.”
Last Tuesday afternoon, however, a team of technicians from the metro arrived with a crane which they hoped would remove the tree.
This, however, was the wrong tool for the job and the workers had to leave to collect the correct equipment.
“If my son had not stopped them from using the crane, I am convinced that they would have ripped a section of our wall out of its foundation,” Bronkhorst said.
On Wednesday, technicians returned to the Primrose East home manned with chainsaws and slowly began to cut away the tree.
“The technicians have been incredibly rude to us,” Jason Bronkhorst said. “When I asked them to be careful of the electric fence they rudely told me they know what they are doing and to let them do their job.”
The GCN sent a query to the metro to find out why the technicians had been so rude to the family and why the family was told that the metro would not assist when the matter was first reported.
At the time of going to press no comment had been received from the metro.
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