“We can’t bath. We can’t flush. We can’t cook. We can’t live this way.”
Tenants in a flat block in Albertskroon said that their landlord has been charging them exorbitantly for water, and they scarcely get the water they’re paying for.
“For the past three weeks she (the landlord) is charging us R200 per head for water on top of our rent (R2 500),” Dorah Malope, one of the affected tenants said on 23 September.
“My one-year-old toddler Kgetho is paying for water. All the children in this block have to pay, some are babies. But the landlord only switches the water on occasionally for a short time. My kids and my neighbours’ kids didn’t go to school today because they stink.”
The smell permeating the block of flats attests to the fact that water is a scarce commodity. The rooms within the flat block are fairly spacious, but kitchen, bathroom and bedroom is open plan and not cordoned off.
“We’re getting sick because sewage is seeping into our showers and backing up our kitchen drains because of the lack of water,” Sandra Ellis, who also lives in the flat block said.
“We’ve been living on bread because we’re afraid of the germs contaminating our rooms.”
The tenants said that they had had a meeting with their landlord. “She is not our friend,” Tshepo Phatlane, an employee and tenant said.
Phatlane recently lost half of his thumb in a work-related accident, and said that he was fired because his landlord and employer did not want to dish up work hazard payment.
The landlord and employer in question, Talitha Myburgh said that she didn’t care about her reputation and didn’t want to comment on the record. Myburgh did show that she had documents requesting that her tenants meet with her to air their grievances. She said Phatlane was an excellent employee, but had demanded full-time work and had been let go because of that.
The water bill for the flat block, she said, was astronomical, and she had to take measures to curb that. “I have been talking with the Health Department and the relevant authorities,” she said on 25 September.
“My plan is to refurbish the flats and make them beautiful, and to do that I can’t afford overpaying the water bills. My tenants know that they didn’t sign contracts saying that they only have to pay their rent. But they’re only shouting at me.”
