Durban — Forty one families including young children were left stranded in the cold when the landlord evicted them for failing to settle R97 000 lockdown rent arrears in the school hall along Sydney Road in Durban, on Tuesday.
The families were living in the hall which was partitioned. After giving them six-month notice, the landlord used security guards to remove them from the hall.
When the Daily News visited the place on Wednesday a few families were still outside the place with young children. They said they did not know where to go.
Musa Memela who was one of the victims, said the families moved to the place in 2009 after the flat that they lived in caught fire and burned down. He said all of them were paying rent until Covid-19 lockdown.
Memela claimed that Covid-19 left some of the people unemployed. Many could not afford to pay the rent and fell into arrears. Memela said they were appealing to the landlord to allow them back while they were looking for alternative accommodation.
“We need urgent help here. We have young children who urgently need shelter. On Tuesday night we slept in a relatives’ accommodation. We have to find another place so we are really desperate for help. It is a difficult,” said Memela.
The dwellers had challenged the removal in court in January but they lost the case and the court granted the right to the landlord to evict at the expiry of the notice which was at the end of June.
Attempts to find the landlord were unsuccessful. The attorneys acting on behalf of the landlord, Dada and Associates could not comment unless instructed to do so by their client.
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Daily News