Famed baby whisperer makes more than one Dias cross
● Childcare expert Marina Petropulos might know how to ensure sweet dreams for babies, but her elderly neighbours in Cape Town say she has made their lives a nightmare.
The swimming pool at Artur and Liliana Dias’s Camps Bay home has detached from the house, floors and walls are cracking, windows and doors have been damaged and the ground has subsided.
The high court in Cape Town has blamed two neighbours — Petropulos and Dawid Venter — for destabilising the slope on which their homes are built. But there is no end in sight for the neighbourly skirmish, which has played out in the courts since 2009, as Petropulos says she intends to appeal.
Artur, who is in his late 70s, said his woes started in 2008 when Venter built a garage and Petropulos — author of the best-selling Baby & Child Care Handbook — excavated her plot to build a house.
Artur had agreed to the construction work on the slope below his home, but his neighbourliness evaporated when his house started to slip downhill, and he launched a damages claim. He made an out-of-court agreement with Venter and has now won his case against Petropulos with costs.
Testifying about the extent of the damage, Liliana painted a sad picture of her home. Judge Lee Bozalek said: “She testified of extensive damage … in the form of cracked tiles, cracks in the concrete slabs from corner to corner, doorframes shifting, numerous cracks in the wall, windows being twisted out of place and bathroom units pulling away from the walls.
“At the inspection in loco, numerous cracks in most of the rooms were pointed out, marked by pieces of masking tape which, the witness testified, had been put up by her on which she recorded the dates when the cracks happened.”
Artur told Bozalek that Petropulos’s husband, master builder Mica Naumann, had assured him the excavation was safe. Naumann’s company, Naumann Construction, and structural engineers Nik Moroff & Associates were joined in the matter as third parties.
Bozalek said: “Mr Naumann told him that he must not worry because he knew what he was doing. Mr Dias testified further about the damage suffered to his house after the 2008 excavations. These included cracks all over the house, the garden sinking and cracks appearing therein, the sewerage and the irrigation systems breaking, the pool moving away from the house and cracking to an ever greater extent.
“He testified that his lounge presently had 100 cracks and his dining room 52 cracks, some of them from the ceiling to the tiles. On the entrance alone there were seven cracks.”
Petropulos’s counsel blamed the problems on poor soil conditions and high rainfall, and claimed that because Artur had agreed to the removal of soil and construction of a retaining wall, she could not be blamed for the damage caused by excavations.
But Bozalek found that the construction work had breached her “duty to provide lateral support” to the Diases’ home. He ordered Petropulos and Nik Moroff & Associates to pay their costs.
The baby-care expert said she would appeal. “I have no doubt that [the judgment] will be overturned. It has just been very unfortunate,” she said.
John Mulder, general manager of Nik Moroff & Associates, said his company has “not made a final decision on whether or not we will appeal this”.
He added: “It’s quite a technical matter in terms of how far the liability extends. Obviously one has to feel for the Dias family in terms of the damages to their property. Nobody wants to be stuck in that situation.”