Family’s stinky sewage saga
Storm-damaged pipes unrepaired
IT’S BEEN a tough five months for a Bluff family and their five tenants who have been living with the stench of sewage on their property due to an unrepaired eThekwini Municipal main sewage pipe that burst during the October 10 storm.
Michael Barbeau explained that the sewage pipe coming from his property links to the main one at the bottom of his yard, adding that it burst where the two pipes join.
When the pipe burst the sand caved in, leaving a gaping hole. Soon afterwards, Barbeau had a small pipe installed at his own cost to carry waste from his property to the main pipe.
“Workmen from the municipality came here, but they said they only deal with blocked pipes and all they did was tie the pipe I’d replaced with a wire at the joint and put some cement at the joint. But the minute someone flushes the toilet inside the house, it drips at the joint so some of the waste drips out,” he said.
The father-of-three said he had been to the area councillor who sent out an inspector, who was an engineer.
“The engineer said he was not from waste, but from stormwater and that the municipality was not responsible for the pipe damage.
“He said he would report it to the relevant people and someone would come to have a look, but no one has come to date.”
Barbeau approached his insurance company, but it only covered him for the damaged walls on his property and not sand damage.
He said he had to pay out of his own pocket for repairing the property and closing the gaping hole not far from his swimming pool.
He had to cut down the trees at the bottom of his property so he could use these to cover the hole that was now “an eyesore in his backyard”.
“But I can’t continue with my repairs until this pipe has been repaired and replaced properly. I was planning on putting up a building for more tenants out there, but now I won’t because I have no surety that the pipe will not burst again. I am just going to landscape this property,” he said.
Barbeau said a number of e-mails had been sent to the city and he had been given many reference numbers for lodging his complaint, yet five months on the pipe remained a health risk concern for his family and tenants.
“From day one, before I put my pipe in, it was all waste that flowed down – from the top straight into the hole in the yard and the stench was unbearable. This was a health hazard to my family and this is precisely the reason I had someone put in our pipe because we could not live like that.”
Barbeau said his costs had been in the region of R20 000 to repair the damaged property that was not covered by insurance and he estimated that, once he was finished with landscaping, he would have spent about R100 000.
“Insurance only covered certain portions – they covered the pool and boundary walls, they won’t cover anything else. Now my main concern is that the municipality is holding me up when it comes to completing the repairs.”
A tenant who lives next to the burst pipe, who did not want to be named, said in the evening trespassers jumped over the fence into the yard.
eThekwini Municipality spokesperson Tozi Mthethwa said an investigation would be conducted and the site visited for permanent repairs.
“However, temporal sewer connection repairs were done after the storm damage,” she said.