Slumlords: Southernwood going to ruin (video)

The Daily Dispatch and DispatchOnline team proudly unveils on Thursday morning the second part of our investigation into Buffalo City’s slumlords, by looking into the situation in what was once one of East London’s respected neighbourhoods: Southerwood. Please watch the following video, shot by DispatchOnline’s Sino Majangaza:

S’WOOD SLUMS: Can’t access YouTube? Click here to watch video (5.6MB -- May buffer)

Join Daily Dispatch investigative reporter Gcina Ntsaluba as he uncovers the degradation -- and the faces behind it -- of this neighbourhood which consists of flats and freestanding homes.

The latest edition of our investigation comes on the back of the Daily Dispatch’s Community Dialogues, earlier this year in which residents came knocking with their plight, as their lives are being turned into living nightmares by landlords, who subdivide homes and cram in tenants, as well as houses that have now been turned into illegal shebeens.

The outcome of the community dialogue session is a much closer look at three of Southernwood’s most notorious streets which are known are known for robberies, shebeens, sex, street fights, guns, shacks, slums and general unruliness.

The situation in Southernwood echoes that of King William’s Town, where the Dispatch team tracked down a slum owner of these homes.

But those living here are squatting in squalor and face dreadful living conditions every day.

In one case, a 21 year-old girl from Mdantsane had to drop out of school after she and her boyfriend had a baby -- which is only 14 months old. The three share an extremely small bedroom for R900 per month in De Villiers Street.

In their room is a single bed, a prima stove and items of clothing hanging on the wall.

The rest of the house has subdivided rooms and there’s a filthy bathroom which they don’t even bother to use anymore.

The owner of the house, Dave Vallabh says there’s not much he can do to stop his tenants from bringing in squatters into the house because he’s not there all the time.

“I told the guys not to bring other people into their rooms because they are only meant for one person.

“I explained it to them that the more people that live there, then more service will be required to fix the house which costs me a lot of me,” he says.

Down the road from De Villiers Street is the notorious Nahoon View Road which has houses with shacks in the backyard.

Almost every second or third house on this street has corrugated iron shacks to accommodate ever-growing number of people who are desperate for accommodation.

It’s a hard life because tenants pay as much as R720 per month to live in make-shift shelters that are vulnerable to winds and rain.

There is no electricity in some of them and people use candles.

There are also no toilets in some house so people urinate outside on the grass or around the corner.

Most people have no formal employment and day to day life is just a grimy experience that they try to escape from by getting drunk or taking drugs.

The drinking starts as early as seven in the morning and will go on until the early hours of the morning or until they pass out.

The streets are always filthy with rubbish bags and beer bottles and the only time it’s  cleaned is when community members come together and do a clean up campaign.

Residents like Adrienne Till who lives in De Villiers Street says weekends are the worst times to be at home because of the loud music from the parties on the streets and the general unruly behaviour of drunken people.

“We just want a peace of quiet here but we never get it,” says Till who often has to pick up broken beer bottles outside her front gate.

Read the rest of our stories online, or in our Slumlord website, as well in the print edition of the Daily Dispatch.