Elderly woman faces demolition threat after sewage disaster in Brooklyn

When 83-year-old Joan Wessels opened her back door on Sunday May 25, she walked into what she describes as “a nightmare no human being should ever go through”. 

Raw sewage - knee deep in some parts - had surged across her sloping back garden in Alwin Street, Brooklyn, filling her swimming pool and covering the western side of the yard in human faeces.

Wessels, who moved to South Africa from Holland in the 1970’s, explained that the overflow followed a blockage in the main sewer pump earlier that month. 

According to her, the City’s pressure-blasting took place further down the street, but the force of the water caused the manhole lid in her garden to lift, sending raw sewage gushing into her pool.

Even her tortoises struggled to escape the contaminated water.

A cleaning team disinfected the area and told her to lodge a public liability claim for the damage to her pool.

She was placed in contact with a public liability claims office, who assured her an inspector would visit, but months passed without progress.

On October 31, an assessor investigating the sewage damage, a City building inspector, Sinalo Molo, arrived.

To her surprise, he issued a notice for unauthorised building work, alleging her swimming pool and a masonry structure had been built illegally, and warned if she did not submit approved building plans within 60 days, demolition action could follow.

“I bought the house as is in 1993. It already had the pool. I have never built anything except changing the floors, which didn’t need plans,” she said. 

She even has a set of old plans drawn almost 100 years ago, but the City rejected it because the area was still farmland and advised her to locate her updated plans.

“All these years I have been paying rates and taxes and this is what I get in return. Now they are threatening to demolish my house, and they are making me look like a criminal,” said Wessels.

Wessels' granddaughter suffers from complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), a severe condition that left her wheelchair-bound and is under the care of Groote Schuur Hospital’s pain clinic and requires Aqua therapy.

The City’s mayoral committee member for finance, Siseko Mbandezi, said: The City remains committed to finalising the claim and that a building inspection formed part of assessing its merits,” he said.

Mayoral committee member for water and sanitation, Zahid Badroodien, said the City cannot drain or disinfect private pools, as their role is limited to public spaces and advised her to proceed with the public liability claim and consult a pool technician.

Mayoral committee member for spatial planning and environment, Eddie Andrews, said no record exists for Wessels’s pool and that aerial photographs show it was built between 1987 and 1997. 

"Only structures built before September 1985 are automatically deemed compliant. Where plans cannot be located, owners must submit 'as-built' plans to the City," he said.

Heritage Western Cape CEO, Dr Michael Janse van Rensburg, confirmed the property is not within a Heritage Protection Overlay Zone.

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