A mother who lived in an upmarket Midrand block of flats says she and her three children were repeatedly terrorised by the building's managing agents before being kicked out.
Theresa Klue alleges that her water and electricity were cut off, and that she was then arrested for illegally reconnecting her power.
Then her flat was doused with water after a hose was put through her window.
If that was not enough, she says she was then served with a three-hour eviction notice and had to leave the premises when the agents, Berader Properties, threatened to take the doors off if she did not go.
With nowhere else to go, Klue and her children ended up sleeping in her bakkie.
Klue moved in to the R4 800-a-month Millennium Village in Midrand on March 1, and says the trouble started a month after that, when she discovered the agents had taken an extra R500 from her bank account, in addition to the monthly debit order.
In protest, she reversed the order, and "all hell broke loose". Her electricity was immediately cut off, leaving her unable to use a nebuliser for her asthmatic child. Thereafter, her water was cut off.
"Two of my children had gastroenteritis and I could not even clean them," she says.
"My children could not even drink a glass of water while they were ill. I had to borrow water from neighbours for simple hygiene such as flushing toilets."
Klue eventually hired an electrician to reconnect her electricity, but he was chased off the premises.
Thereafter, she says, all her visitors were barred from entering the complex.
Klue says the final straw came about two weeks ago when an illegal eviction notice was pinned to her door, giving her three hours to vacate the premises.
"I could not find a place. Sleeping in the car was terrifying. The agents have treated me like dirt and stripped me and my family of our human rights. I cannot understand their inhumane actions as they still have the R5 000 I paid as a deposit."
Klue recently found a place to rent but has had to sell all her possessions, including the bakkie, to pay her deposit.
Derek Varkevisser, co-owner of Berader Properties, admits that in two cases incorrect amounts were taken off Klue's account, but he says these were once-off mistakes.
But he denies some of Klue's claims, saying she was aggressive and threatened to kill the caretaker.
According to Varkevisser, Klue was in arrears following her reversal of the debit order. Klue's excess, which he states was only R200 despite evidence that it was R500, has been credited to the electricity she owed, he says.
Varkevisser says Klue's electrician damaged the electrical system trying to reconnect her.
"We are fully entitled to cut off services if tenants are not paying. Klue was very rude and abusive to our caretaker, and threatened to burn her flat down and kill her. The caretaker resorted to locking her young daughter in her flat because she feared for her life," he says.
Klue is apparently not the only one who has suffered at the hands of the agents.
Several tenants, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of victimisation, complain
that they too have had money illegally debited from their accounts.
They also say they are constantly threatened with disconnection by rude and aggressive agents.
The Estate Agency Affairs Board confirms that Berader Properties' actions are illegal and has urged tenants to lodge complaints with them.
The legal advisor of the Estate Agency Affairs Board, Clive Aahpol, says debiting more than the amount a client has authorised constitutes fraud. Disconnecting electricity and water is completely illegal, he says.
"If tenants do not pay for services, the landlord has to ask the local authority to disconnect the tenant's electricity where there are individual meters. Where there is a common meter, the landlord has to go through the courts to disconnect electricity.
"The law does not allow landlords or agents to take the law into their own hands," he says.
Aapohl adds that Klue's eviction was also illegal as this has to be done through the courts. "Landlords and agents cannot simply evict a person by sticking a notice on their door."
Midrand police has confirmed that Klue has laid fraud charges.