Red Ant gets smoke in his eyes
Neighbour’s braai prompts evictions boss to go to court
● He may head one of the biggest eviction squads in the country, but the owner of the Red Ants ran into trouble getting rid of problems on his own doorstep.
Johan Bosch accused next-door neighbour Benita Crouse of using an illegally built chimney to try to “smoke” him and his family out of their holiday home in Gordon’s Bay. The ensuing legal spat raged for two years before the high court in Cape Town issued a ruling last month.
Bosch said in his court application that his 2016 December holidays were ruined when he and his family were treated for smoke inhalation.
In a voluminous affidavit, the Red Ants CEO also accused Crouse of pouring oil into her fireplace to make his stay in his multimillion-rand holiday pad unbearable. Bosch claimed that she invited a crowd of young people to party all night at her house and irritated him with Afrikaans songs.
According to Bosch, the feud was ignited by his refusal to sell his Harbour Island property to Crouse’s brother-in-law. She then declared “war” on his family.
He said he approached the court after Crouse emptied her trash bins on his driveway, threatened his builder and stole irrigation pipes from his sprinkler system.
Bosch said Crouse and her visitors “shouted nasty remarks” at his family from an illegally erected wooden deck which invaded his privacy.
Crouse’s braai chimney — built without municipal planning approval — was too close to his property and not high enough to disperse smoke effectively, he said.
“During our recent December stay, and merely to make our stay intolerable … [Crouse and others] persistently made fires in the fireplace from about 4pm in the afternoon until about 3am the next morning, day after day,” Bosch’s affidavit said.
“To ensure the smoke affected us as negatively as possible, [she or others] spilt oil on the fire or on the briquettes, resulting in smoke for hours filling [my house].
“These smoking incidents started from [my] refusal to sell and were reported to [the Harbour Island Homeowners Association] without success. [Crouse or someone else] also regularly invited a large number of mostly young people to their house to party all night whilst drinking alcohol and singing short versions of three Afrikaans songs over and over simply to irritate us.”
Bosch asked the court to interdict Crouse and her visitors from “using the outside braai, wooden deck and pergola” on her property, to declare the structures noncompliant with approved plans and to compel her to demolish the structures.
He also asked the court to interdict Crouse and her visitors from making remarks to anyone in his home. He wanted the court to authorise him to raise the boundary wall between his and Crouse’s property from 1.2m to 1.8m and compel Crouse to contribute 50% of the building costs.
Crouse demolished the struc- tures before the matter could be heard in court. But in court papers, she said she had taken the necessary steps to regularise them and that Bosch’s litigation was aimed at raising their boundary wall — which she would never agree to.
She said she suspected Bosch’s pool and retaining wall were unlawful and said he had failed to cover his swimming pool despite “the drought restriction applicable”. Crouse denied Bosch’s accusations that she had made his life unbearable, had intimidated him and his family and had stolen his irrigation pipes.
She said the friends to whom Bosch referred were in their 50s and 60s and would not make unsavoury remarks to neighbours. She had had only one braai in December 2016 and the police and health officials who responded to Bosch’s complaint “counted seven pieces” of wood “and could not believe that anybody would complain about such a braai”.
Crouse’s affidavit said: “On occasion [Bosch] has been accompanied by bodyguards who stayed with him.
“[He] is also someone who often boasts about his wealth and ability to unleash his forces on someone that he has disputes with. He is hardly the kind of character who needs the court’s protection from me.”
In his judgment last month, Judge Ashley Binns-Ward made no order as to costs, meaning each party will have to pay its own lawyers. He said Crouse’s voluntary dismantling of the deck and chimney had rendered that part of the case moot.
This week, Bosch said he was happy the matter had been resolved. “It was just a thing where she [Crouse] was smoking us out. It has been resolved,” he said. “I am not going to even give an opinion or anything on it.”