Water damage hits business in Alrode South
Paint was peeling off the wall and the wood of his desk has swollen up from absorbing the floods.
THE mutual feeling among some business owners in Alrode and Alrode South is that maintenance and service delivery problems are getting out of hand.
A business owner from Bosworth Street, Alrode South, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he has been dealing with major problems due to a water leakage and blocked drainage systems in the area. This, he says, is due to a lack of maintenance and the tardiness of municipal workers.
“You’ll have to excuse this office,” he says. “It’s still dirty from recent water damage.”
The paint is peeling from the walls and his wooden desk is swollen from the water.
“For the past two years, there have been major problems in this street due to flooding,” he explains.
A leak has sprung up in front of his building, wasting thousands of litres of water. As the road is slightly elevated, water fills in around the lot. It has nowhere else to flow, since nearby drainage systems are blocked with rubbish, plant waste and even raw sewage and used toilet paper. This has taken a toll on the buildings.
“Nobody ever comes to clear the rubbish or fix the leak,” he says. “It’s no complicated solution – so I guess they prefer to go on break than to just do their duties. Someone came once to look at the leak, but they just dug a hole, looked at it, filled it up with soil again and left.”
The drainage system behind an adjacent building raises more questions. Grass and bushes have clearly been growing there for quite some time and it is littered with dirt. Again, there is nowhere for water to flow.
A man, who wishes to remain anonymous, comments: “You can see the line on the wall where the water floods; it’s about half a metre up. Raw sewage flows out of the manholes and into the floodwater and then this area stinks for days after the rains have gone.”
The RECORD is awaiting comment from the EMM.
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