Theft, especially petty theft continues to be a problem for residents living in the Laudium Ext 3 area, more so as the area is surrounded by open fields leading to the hills towards Atteridgeville.
For many years now, residents living in the area, have been calling for the area to be closed off, as even the local police are unable to run after the many criminals who use the thick grass open area as a quick getaway after attacking residents. In one of the recent incidents of crime in the area, items from a washing line vanished without anyone living in the area seeing who the thieves were. The incident which took place the previous Monday has left many of the tenants living in the area, calling on their landlords to upgrade the security to their rented apartments as they were living in fear, despite paying exorbitant rentals. Charity Lungozi who is one of the tenants at the house on Bengal Str Ext 3 told the Laudium Sun, “Last Monday, I woke up early in the morning as usual and after finishing some chores, I did the washing of some clothing and blankets. Later in the afternoon after finishing with most of my house work for the day, at around 4:30pm, I went to have a bath. After having my bath I went out into the yard to get the washing I did in the morning as it was nearing sunset and I thought that the blankets must be dry. But when I got to the washing line I was totally surprised to find the four lines empty and all my washing missing. I looked around thinking it could have fallen or that perhaps one of the other tenants could have taken it off as it was going towards sunset. I then went to the door
of the other tenant, Kabelo Skosana knocking there and when she opened, I asked her if she perhaps took my blankets and clothing off the
line and she said no. That is when I realized that my clothing had been stolen, because we have had these kinds of incidents happen to us
before also. I then called our landlord Dr Sooboo and told him that we are losing too many things due to the high theft in the area and that he should please fix the walls by making them higher and putting barbed wire, so that these thieves would hopefully stop jumping into our yards whenever they feel like and stealing whatever they feel like. This time it was only the washing the net time it could be something worse, we could be attacked. These criminals are all coming from the open hills behind us and jumping into our yards, stealing our things and easily running away into the bush again. We need to highlight all this crime before it gets out of hand and if these thieves get away with this kind of crime what is stopping them from attacking us and even killing us. I just hope that the police ill do something about all this crime in our area
as we are living very much in fear.”
Kabelo Skosana who is one of the tenants in the same yard told the Laudium Sun, “I have a baby and sometimes these thieves are so daring they jump into the yard without even having any fear even after seeing me in the yard. Sometimes I run and scream for help because I don’t know if these criminals are armed or not. They are not even afraid of my screams. If you drive past you will see them hiding in the bush next to this house we are renting, they attack anytime of the day or night and the police even know about them hiding in the bush, but they are not prepared to run after the thieves into the bush. There is a resident who stays on Katmandu Str who from time to time warns us, by whistling when these thieves are sitting in the bush and watching us. I don’t even know this guy’s name but I am thankful because he tries to save our lives many times.”