Business owners on the corner of Fourth Street and Fourth Avenue, central business district, have had enough of high water bills.
Joan Miller, ex-Springs resident and owner of the building, says she has been trying everything to get the metro to investigate, but nothing has come of it.
She says she splits the service accounts each month between the four different shop owners.
But after watching the amount on the account increase drastically, she contacted the metro to establish what the reasons were behind the increasing amount.
Miller says the account is far too high.
The four shops have one toilet and basin each and it is impossible to use almost R5 000 of water between them in a month.
Being desperate to find a solution she decided to take matters into her own hands.
“I called Greg Anderson, a local businessman, to see if he can perhaps find a possible water leak,” she says.
Andersen recently went to the premises where he found a tiny leak, which he repaired.
At the end of August another horror account awaited the business owners.
Miller says yet the metro insistents that the problem is not on their side.
She recently reported it to the metro again and was given a reference number.
“They never investigated, so I called on Anderson again,” she says.
Last Wednesday he checked for a water leak by using a gas water leak detector.
This was done, by closing the outside tap and pushing the gas through the entire pipeline.
“If there is a hole in the pipe the electronic device will pick it up,” he says.
After the tests, Anderson found a leak under the pavement approximately 300mm away from the water pipe.
He called the metro and was given another reference number.
At 10.45am, last Wednesday, Anderson visited the water department’s offices in Springs and found no-one in the office.
After calling the metro again, he was asked to wait at the leak, as they will send somebody.
He waited for a couple of hours and then left.
According to the shop owners no-one from the metro has been there yet.
