Pretoria - Waking up to the fresh smell of raw sewerage everyday has become a norm for residents of Pretoria West as their pleas for help have all but been ignored by the Tshwane municipality for over two months.
Residents and business owners along Soutter Street just opposite the Tshwane Events Centre, said they had all but given up hope that they might be able to live without the smell of sewage on their doorstep.
Walking around some of the manholes one could see how some residents had attempted to cover up the flow with sand which had all but been washed away.
Feaces, used sanitary tampons, tissues and other debris can be seen when walking around the street.
Resident Steven Suddugge, said the problem started after the manholes next to the main entrance of the events centre down the street started clogging up in early October.
He said slowly but surely the other manholes also started leaking raw sewage.
“I have never seen a single person from the municipality even coming by just to check what has gone wrong even though we have called them a couple of times. When they do pass by here they’re usually here for other issues.”
“The smell gets really unbearable in the hot weather and to make matters worse cars drive over the water and it splashes on to our church members using the walkway.”
Business owner Owen Kach said they had been going back and forth with the municipality and had simply been informed that the truck that had the machine that opens the manholes was not operating.
Kach said the only thing they had been advised was that the City would try to put chlorine in to make it more "hygienic" but no one had ever come through to do just that.
“My customers are complaining about the smell but we’re more concerned with the health hazard because the cars drive over it bringing it right into the yard.”