The ninja turtles of Lavender Hill are catching on k@k in the area’s sewers.
City of Cape Town workers removed a whole mattress from a 900mm sewer pipeline in the area on Monday.
Video shared on social media shows City workers removing the vrot mattress from the drain with a hele garbage.
According to the City, mense are dumping alles wat mal is in the drains, causing mass blockages on the Cape Flats.
Mayco member for Water and Sanitation, Zahid Badroodien, has asked residents to stop this dangerous trend which he also claims smells a lot like sabotage.
“Lavender Hill, we removed this mattress from your 900mm sewer pipeline,” he said. “Did someone flush this down the toilet or are there people in your community actively sabotaging the network and causing sewer overflows in front of your homes?”
Commenting on the City’s post on Facebook, mense suggested that the mattress could belong to a bergie, as some homeless people are known to store their belongings in drains and stormwater pipes.
Graham McKinon said: “I have personally witnessed people ‘storing’ blanket’s and personal belongings in stormwater drains so it would not surprise me if this was the result of that.”
Ridha Abader added: “Maybe that was someone’s bed you just removed. People be living underground these days due to inflation and poverty.”
Clive Jacobs, a community leader from Lavender Hill, claimed flooding during rainy days is caused by blocked drains due to illegal dumping, but also blames the City for employing “cheap” contractors to do the maintenance.
“It is the City with the cheap contractors as the drains have not been serviced in Lavender Hill for many years,” he said.
The dumping has now put the whole of Lavender Hill in a bad light, according to Jacobs.
“I confronted guys who were dumping dirt here and they said that they are dumping it where they can. However, people from posh areas are also dumping their old goods in Lavender Hill thinking the people will take it,” he added.
Badroodien said among the items fished out of the Flats sewers recently are buckets full of spoons near the Sisonke informal settlement.
“Across the city, we deal with foreign objects blocking our systems. These are not flushed down the toilet but are dumped into the pipes by people who do not care for their community and neighbours. Help report these criminals at 021 480 7700,” he added.