Dirty communal toilets cause stink in house
“Sometimes I cannot even cook because the smell from the toilets is overwhelming”
An unbearable sewage stench greets you when you walk into Zanele Ndikho’s home. She lives in Khayelitsha’s Site B, where she shares her three-room shack with her husband and three children aged 16, 19 and 23.
Ndikho’s house is a corner house. Right next to her front door, is a communal toilet, once you turn the corner into her backyard, there are four other unserviced communal toilets which stink of faeces.
“The toilets are too close to my house and they are very dirty. Some of them are not working and they are not cleaned at all. This is very unhealthy and dangerous for my family. Sometimes I clean the toilets myself even though I have no protective clothing to wear when doing so. It is becoming very hard to stay in this house because sometimes I cannot even cook because the smell from the toilets is overwhelming,” said Ndikho.
Ndikho says she and some of her neighbours have reported this matter to their street committees, their ward councillor and people from the City of Cape Town, but have been told that there is no other place that the toilets can be moved to. “We were told that the area on its own is dense so there was no suitable place for the toilets. When we told the people who repair toilets from the City about our problem they said that we cannot chase away services or developments in our area.”
Her wish is for the City to either find alternative accommodation for her that she can move to, or to make sure that the toilets are cleaned and repaired on a regular basis.
Xanthea Limberg, the City’s acting mayoral committee member for utility services, confirmed that the City had received complaints about this issue and the residents’ concerns were being attended to.
“These are full-flush toilets which cannot be easily relocated. Relocating full-flush toilets requires space and readily available infrastructure. The current toilets positions are the best available given the physical challenges already experienced in the settlement,” said Limberg.
According to Limberg, there is a janitorial service in the area and the toilets are cleaned every day when the service is fully operational. “The City has been experiencing minor recruitment challenges which it has managed to overcome and the service will be fully operational in the next couple of weeks.”
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