Aggrieved residents living along Ingonyama Street, Ezakheni, told The Ladysmith Herald that the weekend of 16 to 18 September was an absolute nightmare as they were forced to dodge masses of human excrement which had overflowed into their showers and bathrooms through the drainage system.
Raw sewage also flooded their backyards and every call made to uThukela District Municipality allegedly fell on deaf ears. “We had called the service provider and said ‘please, we really need assistance’ as the overflowing sewage was starting to fill our homes,” alleged one of the residents of the three homes that were severely affected.
“We had to sleep with the smell, cook and live with it for at least three days. Do you know what it smells like? Everything in the house had to be washed afterwards, to get rid of the smell.”
Residents said that they started complaining about the sewage overflow on Friday morning, 16 September, but no help came. “We were informed that our case reference number was 15 or 16 and the team will get to us when they can. Again, we called, but were informed by the call centre agent that since no one could reach us on Friday, we would have to wait for Monday. I even asked her if we, as a family of six, have to stay in the sh*t and she said ‘yes’.”
The call centre agent further added that because of rules set by new management, the staff who attend to these problems only work from Monday to Friday, with no overtime, and if there was overtime there may have been a chance to assist the residents on Friday or sometime on the weekend but the new management changed the working times so “it is what it is”.
“She put the phone down and we decided to rather seek an alternative place to stay until the matter is sorted out.”
What added to the already horrible situation is the fact that the residents actually didn’t have to suffer through three whole days of having raw sewage in their homes and yards, a realisation which was made on Monday afternoon, 19 September, when the uThukela team finally assisted. “It took them just five minutes. I kid you not. If they had come on Friday, all this could have been avoided. Five minutes,” said the fed-up residents.
They added that uThukela District Municipality shows no responsibility to the communities. “If we are not sleeping in excrement, we have to search for water to use in our homes and this is a service that we, as residents, are paying for.”
