Another week and yet more incidents of crime have been reported in the gated security areas of Laudium, to the Laudium Sun for stats purposes. The ongoing crime has left residents living in these areas frustrated, as despite taking desperate steps to close off streets and paying monthly fees, to ward off criminals coming into their areas, crime still continues.
In one of the latest incidents of these crimes, the car of a resident living in the gated area of Mendhi Str, was broken into and the spare tyre and other items left in the boot of the car were stolen. The theft which took place some time between the evening of last Thursday (March 20) and the morning of Friday (Human Rights Day) shocked the owner, more so as he felt that keeping his car, which had a mechanical issue, outside his home was not a problem due to his street being gated. Resident Muawiya Razak, told the Laudium Sun, “My car, a Renault Scenic had been parked outside my house for about for two months, because it has an engine problem, but this did not bother me as we live in a gated area, so I expected my car to be safe, despite being parked outside.
On Thursday early evening when I checked my car, everything still seemed fine. However when I went outside the next day, on Friday (March 21) I was surprised to see the boot of my car open. So I rushed to check what was the problem, only to find that the spare wheel and jack & spanner of the car were missing. I could not understand how it was possible to steal these things from the boot without anyone seeing anything suspicious, so I asked around and the guard at the gate said he did not see anything. One of my neighbours then told me that he saw two black guys rolling a tyre but he did not see where they came from, so he did not realise that the tyre was stolen from my car. I was so angry because the tyre is expensive and it will cost around R2000 to replace it. The crime in Laudium, especially on our street is just not stopping,despite the gating system in place. Everywhere you go, there are gates, but what are the gates and security doing to prevent crime happening every day? Why are we even paying monthly towards these gates and security guards at the gates, without any service or security in return. Nothing good is happening in Laudium and the politicians are not doing anything about it, until it is election time again. The recent kidnapping of a 9-year-old child also happened on our street without the kidnappers being stopped. These criminals are just not stopping. I think we, the residents of Mendhi Street, are being targeted by these criminals and they won’t stop even with security in place 24/7. In order to have a peaceful life in Laudium, we must insist that the police do their job and patrol our areas more frequently. Why do we need private security services when we pay rates and taxes? The police are supposed to protect us and prevent crime.
not stopping despite the gating system in place.
Mohammed Alli, also a resident of Mendhi Street, told the Laudium Sun, “Crime has literally increased since the security guards and gates were put in place in Laudium. To be honest, there is a security guard in our area, but all he does is nothing at all. He is just collecting money from residents and helps them as a delivery person. Some houses on Mendhi Street give him money to buy groceries and cold drinks for them while the owners are sitting and relaxing at home, sending the security guard to shop for them. This is really not right. They give extra cash to the security guard to do all the shopping on their behalf. So how is the area supposed to be secured when the security guard is running errands and doing grocery shopping for some greedy, thoughtless people in our area? How can our safety be ensured? This must stop. We pay every month for the security guard, and some greedy and lazy people are taking advantage of it.”
shopping.
Another Mendhi Street resident, Syed Amir Ali, told the Laudium Sun, “I was surprised to hear about the theft of the car spare tyre. This is really bad. The crime in our area is really going on to a larger scale, and if this continues, I don’t think Laudium will last long. That is why so many residents are moving out to security estates.”
