FERNDALE – People on a private property on Long Avenue in Ferndale are living in squalor, with dwellers allegedly transgressing most of the City of Johannesburg’s bylaws.
The owner rents out the property to tenants who live in overcrowded shacks and caravans. These tenants make a noise until the early hours of the morning, burn rubbish inside the property and illegally connect electricity.
Living conditions pose a health and safety risk to neighbours and residents in the area. Some of the residents have been enduring these conditions for about three years.
Loud noise emanates from the property until the early hours of the morning, especially over weekends, keeping residents up and awake all night. “A lot of extensions have been done to the main dwelling with multiple DStv dishes,” said one resident who would not be named for fear of victimisation.
“The owner has broken every law in the book regarding building, sewage, health, sanitation and electricity, but no one seems to be able to do anything about it,” he said. Rats are often seen running inside the property and on top of shack roofs.
“It has now become a health nightmare with the rats, pollution and noise. They have started laying down poison and we have found eight huge, dead rats by our dogs’ water bowl,” said one resident.
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Ward 104 councillor, Mike Wood said they try by all means to locate the owners of problem properties and hand them over to the City council. “Most of the time the owner rents out the property to tenants, who then sublet it. Sometimes these properties are hijacked,” Woods explained and said he was working with the local residents’ associations in the area to sort this problem out and would establish whether one of the properties was handed over to the City.
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The City’s spokesperson, Nkosinathi Nkabinde said the environmental health practitioners conducted an inspection. “These conditions led to a wide variety of costly problems to the City, including increased generation of waste that is not properly managed, blocked sewers, illegal connection of electricity and the decreasing value of properties,” he said.
Nkabinde said they have been monitoring the premises and have referred the matter to other relevant departments such as the Planning and Building Control Directorate, the legal department and JMPD to ensure that remedial action is being taken to enforce compliance with laws and regulations.
Details: City of Johannesburg 086 056 2874.
