THE Park Hill family, who were affected by a municipal sewage problem for over a year, can finally breathe a sigh of relief – well, they hope.
Three weeks ago, the Northglen News carried a story – Sewage emerges through showers and drains, March 25 – on how the family were battling to get the eThekwini Municipality to stop sewage from surfacing on their property and in their shower and bathtub.
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The City responded to the matter a day after the story was published. Prior to that, emails and calls made to the municipality had been ignored.
“The municipality came out the very next day with the inspectors. They had cameras to push down the pipes and see where the problem was,” said Natasha Smuts, the tenant who lives on the affected property.
“They also brought a honeysucker to remove the sewage, and then they left,” said Smuts.
She said she has been sent copies of emails saying that when a senior asked the staff, who had responded to the fault logged, for feedback, there had been no response.
“The ward councillor told me she had also followed up, but she hasn’t received a response,” said Smuts.
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She added that she believed it was the article that got the City out the very next day.
“It’s strange how at 09:00, the day after the article was published, the City had equipment and people available to come and assess the situation. We have been experiencing sewage come into our bathrooms and around the house for almost a year, and nothing was done,” she added.
Her landlord had spent a small fortune prior to that paying for personal plumbers and honeysuckers.
“So far, the sewage hasn’t resurfaced again, but the worry is that a permanent solution has still not been found,” said Smuts.
Ward 36 councillor Shontel de Boer said the City needs to repair collapsed pipes underground.
“Jetting is only a short-term solution, but what is actually needed is for the pipe to be repaired once and for all. My heart goes out to the resident who is affected by this as they have a three-year-old child, and this is a health hazard to the family,” said de Boer.
The eThekwini Municipalilty’s spokesperson, Lindiwe Khuzwayo, said the City always attends speedily to sewage leaks or overflows that are reported.
“But the challenge we are experiencing in our communities is that manholes are clogging because of people who dispose of foreign objects into the system. We are therefore appealing to all our residents to avoid using material that can cause blockages,” she said.
“We have escalated this matter to the relevant unit so they can attend to it. We apologise for the inconvenience this is causing the public, however, we are again appealing to the public to work with us by ridding our system of alien objects,” added Khuzwayo.
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