Homes leaking, 7 months later
Houses ruined, insurers won’t act
THERE is a limit to how much known surfer Sibongile Gwala loves water. She has had enough of the water that has rushed into her council-owned Lamontville home every time it has rained since the October 10 storm that wreaked havoc across Durban.
However, things took a turn for the better after The Independent on Saturday took her plight to the eThekweni Municipality and, this week, a contractor was on site to start repairs.
“My neighbours even sit under umbrellas in their own rooms,” she said of life over the past seven months.
She said she was grateful to have a ground-floor unit and that neighbour Themba Mbense was a pensioner and another neighbour, Nosindiswa Zondi, was sickly.
“They must even sleep in their kitchens and in their toilets when it rains,” she said.
Furniture and other valuables sat under plastic wrappings in the building in Ntuli Street, in Addis Ababa section.
Gwala said after the storm, she was unable to report the matter to the local councillor, who had been mourning a family death at the time.
In the suburbs, Carrington Heights IT consultant Robert Stanton continued to live with damage and leaks to his house, with no help forthcoming from his insurers.
On a couple of occasions, people introducing themselves as assessors had arrived to take a look at the damage, but that had not led to any repairs, he said.
“I call my insurers weekly. Often it’s just an answering machine on the other end of the line.
“Sometimes somebody who appears to be at the first tier of management will tell me someone will call, but no one ever does,” he said. Stanton said he was reaching the point of despair.
He said he had been with Absa insurance for 35 years and had submitted his first claim. In the meantime, with every storm, the house he bought in 1992 had become more of a wreck and less of an asset.
Plastic lined the floor of a room where books had been ruined because water had leaked through the damaged roof. There were gaping holes on the roof of his veranda that had been discoloured by black, algal growth. A tree which was blown down on October 10 had dislodged a down-pipe from a gutter and some of its branches had remained caught in a neighbour’s tree.
An aluminium awning from Stanton’s kitchen door still lay where it had landed, at the bottom of his garden. He estimated the damage at about R100 000.
Absa said it would respond to Stanton’s claims more than a week ago. By late last night, no comment had been received.