Scared landlady forced to move out of her own home
A struggling single mom and her two children are renting a room while her tenants are living rent free in her home in Mitchells Plain and refuse to leave.
Gaynor Williams, 40 says she rented out two rooms of her three-bedroom home in Dorper Way, Westridge, to the Brown family in March last year, and they were only supposed to stay for six months.
She says she charged the family – two parents and three children – R3000 per month and they soema paid R17 000 upfront, with R1000 outstanding, but never paid again.
“I was going through a difficult time and could not afford to feed me and my two children. My son was friends with their son and I thought I would help them. We had a lease agreement that they can only stay six months, that was to help me get back on my feet,” she explains.
She says they got along well but towards the end of September, when the family was supposed to leave, the tenant’s son Junaid, 20, called her at the hairdresser to say she had visitors.
“I don’t know who these guys were who apparently said that I told them to wait for me at home. Junaid said he left the house.
“The place got broken into and they accused me of sending these people (to rob them), but my stuff also got stolen like all my food, my ID, my children’s stuff as well.
“Junaid hit my 17-year-old son with a stick in the face, his face was bleeding. I was attacked as well. That was when I took my stuff and moved out.”
She says she opened cases of housebreaking and assault, but could not provide case numbers as she has lost her cellphone.
According to Gaynor, the tenants claim they lost goods to the value of R42 000 and first want her to pay for this before moving out.
She now lives in a room in Strandfontein and is taking care of an elderly woman with dementia in lieu of rent as she is currently unemployed.
“My children want to go home. I want to sell my house and rebuild my life. I can’t even enter my own house because I don’t have a key. I need to make an appointment and stand by the door, even the real estate agents get chased away.”
When Daily Voice visited the house in Westridge yesterday, mom Nadia Brown said that she did not want to comment “anything on record” without her husband Joshua being present.
She said that she was not sure when he would be home as he was out visiting a sickly friend.
When asked for his contact number, she claimed that he didn’t have a cellphone.
Meanwhile, Junaid called Gaynor, and could be heard telling her: “Jy n***er, don’t hello me, you better come get these people here.”
When the Daily Voice contacted Nadia again, she claimed her husband “had just left” to visit his friend again.
An hour later, Nadia answered the phone and her husband could be heard saying he wanted to speak, but she told him “nee”.
She then insisted that we speak to a neighbour “to get the full truth”. Asked to put the neighbour on the line, she said “he is not at home, he is at work”.
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