Residents urged to stop and take a look at their surroundings
Little Falls residents are urged to take a look at their surroundings while driving through the suburb, and report any unusual activity to their residents' association or councillor.
After noticing several stop signs being tampered with, and subsequently removed from their designated spots, the Little Falls Residents Association (LIFCO) has stepped up and urged the community to take notice of their surroundings.
To ‘stop and smell the roses’ as many residents rush to and from work and don’t take a moment to take in their surroundings and hopefully notice anomalies in their environment.
Claire Faucet from LIFCO explained that on November 5, the local council WhatsApp group received a notification from ward councillor Zoné Hughes that a resident complained about a stop sign being stolen on Montrose Street where it intersects with Rainbow Street and then the same happened on Mary Cole and Monte Dora streets’ intersection.
Later on, Faucet saw a waste picker holding a broken-off stop sign, when he noticed her looking he tried to hide it, she told him to give it to her and asked him where he found it – he simply said ‘I found it in a dustbin’.
She has since kept it for safekeeping. She then sent out a memo to her community groups to notify the community to be on the lookout for any suspicious activity surrounding the stop signs.
Another resident saw how waste pickers would stop at the stop sign on her street and then start to bend and weaken the signs.
“We assume they are bending them until they are weak enough to break and then take them down and possibly sell them for money,” she remarked.
Bertha Scheepers from Joburg Roads Agency said that they are busy investigating these occurrences and will give feedback once they have collected all the relevant information and can give a plan of action for the way forward.
“I just want to use this incident, or series of incidents, as a wake-up call for the community to come together and protect our infrastructure,” exclaimed Faucet. She mentioned residents putting out their bins on Sundays have been attracting waste pickers to come through earlier and canvas the area.
