Durban — Cindy Singh, 56, a cancer survivor of Unit 5 in Chatsworth, said her family and neighbours had been dealing with 40 years of problems with stormwater and sewerage issues.
She said all hell breaks loose once it starts raining.
Singh said that after recovering from bone marrow cancer, she now had haemorrhoids and was having radiation treatment for it.
She said due to the sewerage issues, she had developed an infection and had to be treated with antibiotics two weeks ago.
According to Singh, there has not been much assistance from the municipality’s side, even though her health was at risk.
“This is now affecting my mental health. I have grandchildren and raising them in such an environment does not sit well with me. They cannot even play outside,” she said.
“My house has been flooding for the past 40 years, there are so many manholes. Sewage and rain floods inside our front to back. Every time it gets worse. Nothing has been done.
“We have lost so much during the rains. We are always stressed and we can’t sleep. At the moment there is no rain but there is sewage flowing by my kitchen door and inside the kitchen. My life has become so depressing,” she said.
Singh said it was frustrating that they had to be vigilant all the time, to be ready to move things around when it floods.
She said it was impossible to open doors and breathe fresh air as the windows and doors have to be closed for them not to compromise their health. This was no way for a person to live, she said.
Singh said that they had appealed to the municipality a couple of times but were only offered temporary help without any permanent fix to the situation.
EThekwini spokesperson Msawakhe Mayisela said they would have a look at the issue.
“Teams will be dispatched to investigate and will be attending to the matter.”
He said the City was far from winning the war against the clogging of manholes as these incidents were no exception.
Mayisela urged residents to change their behaviour as more than 70% of clogged manholes were due to alien objects disposed of in their systems.
“We attend to such leaks on numerous occasions and as soon as we turn our back, we go back to square one. We are therefore appealing to residents to refrain from using newspapers in their toilets and to stop the disposal of items such as tampons, condoms, diapers, and oil in our system.
“These are all the things that our teams are retrieving when attending to clogged manholes,” he said.
The municipality did not comment on whether they had received Singh’s complaints before as she provided the Daily News with numerous emails she had sent to them.
Daily News