Spring water damaging families’ homes
THREE Gelvandale families whose houses have been badly damaged as a result of being built on a water spring decades ago have been desperately appealing to the municipality for help.
The houses, built by the government pre-1994, have over the years become structurally defective, displaying cracks, swollen floors and sagging walls.
The families in Martin and Hislop streets have also been struggling with various illnesses which they believe are linked to the damp foundation on which their houses were built.
They say they have pleaded with the municipality for assistance, but to no avail.
Jacobus Epnaar, 68, of Martin Road, said the municipality kept telling them that it could not do anything about the problem because it was not a burst pipe.
Epnaar’s house has swollen wooden floors, cracks in the wall, and he has had to create an opening for the water to flow onto the street.
He said: “We don’t know what do because the municipality always tell us it is not their problem.
“We have endless problems here because we get sick all the time and we have a problem with mosquitoes but we can’t afford to go and live elsewhere.”
Epnaar said when it rained his property was often drenched in water.
Epnaar’s neighbour Ashton Harris is battling with the same problem.
“We are getting sick here because it is very cold. When the weather report is eight degrees, here we feel like it is minus two degrees,” Harris said.
Hislop Street resident Ashlyn van Wyk’s boundary wall is leaning forwards and at risk of collapsing. She said the wall problem was caused by the water.
“I am afraid that one day this wall is going to fall on someone.
“We have children, sometimes they play outside and we don’t always watch them,” she said.
Van Wyk, who had lived in the house for 31 years, said the spring has been a problem for her family.
“Every time we lodge a complaint with the municipality they tell us they can’t fix it because it is spring water, not a water leak problem.”
Ward 10 councillor Andy Jordan said the problem was being attended to.
He said the municipality’s roads and stormwater department had committed to making money available to build a special drain for the spring water, as it was also affecting the Gelvandale Stadium.