The sewage crisis in Standerton, Mpumalanga, is causing tension between neighbours who are desperately trying to find a solution to the long standing problem of stinking runoffs in neighbourhoods.
Pheelo Tsotetsi, a resident of Ext 8, told Sowetan that the situation had pitted him against his neighbour as he decided to install a pipe in his home to redirect sewage flow away to the streets passing through a neighbour's property.
Tsotetsi, 60, said his house was flooded with raw sewage back flowing from the toilet.
"I woke up to a toilet boiling with sewage, faeces and tissues from my neighbours last year. I had to run and use a metal tray to cover the toilet seat to prevent the spill; it was hell," Tsotetsi said.
He said when he realised that the plumbing was faulty, he reported it to the municipality but "nothing happened".
"I was sent from pillar to post [by Lekwa]. I joined a pipe to my drain and redirected the sewage outside the yard to the street .I became the talk of my street."
Neighbours threatened to beat him up for trying to find a solution to the problem for his house, he said.
"The municipality failed me and told me I had to wait for the government to find another contractor to redo the plumbing of the pipes because it was faulty."
He said he was not going to wait forever and so he made a plan, to save his house from being immersed in a poo lake.
"But now my neighbours fight me because of the sewage that streams on the streets. But I couldn't allow it to come inside my house again. It was very traumatic and disgusting. I had to physically clean up the mess and fill up buckets and throw it far from my house."
Another resident, Zanele Memela, said she also had to act on the sewage that had trapped her in her own home.
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