If you have an old-type water meter then watch out, you might soon be a victim of crime.
Thieves are still stealing metal water meters in the Germiston area on a regular basis, and the affected residents are then often left with litres of water gushing down the road, while they have none inside for days.
The GCN was contacted by Shirlee Rogans on Thursday.
Her family’s water meter in Pitts Avenue, Sunnyridge, was stolen on Tuesday night and, although they reported this to the metro early the next morning, no one came out to assist them until late on Thursday afternoon.
“We have elderly people, as well as a baby in the house, and this type of service from the metro is unacceptable,” Rogans said.
“How many litres of fresh drinking water have been wasted due to the metro not coming out to fix this timeously, as well as the fact that the household was left without water?”
Rogans contacted Ward 92 councillor Graham Gersbach, who also worked hard to try to get the metro out to fix the problem urgently.
Another concern is that the family will be charged for the wasted water – although they reported the matter as soon as they found that the water meter had been stolen.
The water pouring from the gaping hole left by the thieves started to flood the next door neighbour’s yard and Rogans was worried that it would start flowing into the house.
“When you call the call taking centre you are told that it will take between four and 48 hours to replace,” Rogans said.
“This is not good enough — something like this should be treated as urgent.”
She also told the GCN that they had heard that a number of water meters had been stolen on the same night in Windsor Avenue.
Over the past few months, the GCN has received a number of calls from people who have had their water meters stolen.
Some of the thefts have occurred in Olympia Street, Primrose Extension Two; Algol Street, Solheim (and this took almost a month to replace) and Eugenia Road, Wychwood (it took the metro two weeks to replace this meter) and Randleigh Avenue, Dawnview.
Many of the residents have complained about how difficult it was to contact the metro when they were trying to report these thefts, and they were not happy with the service they received.
The GCN requested urgent comment from the metro with regard to Rogans’ complaint and how they justified wasting so much water and leaving ratepayers waterless.
The metro merely sent us a comment that stated that the call was not logged or received by the water meter standby team, as it was logged under operations and had been reassigned, and the team would attend to it by the end of Thursday.
