Dear Minister of Police

Dear Minister of police

I hope to find you well, rested and safe. I write you with a level of uncertainty as I ponder whether this is a matter for Home Affairs; the Red Ants or the police; thus I hope your infinite wisdom and knowledge of process shall guide me.

You see, I like many South Africans occupying our ever so potentially gifted land are faced with the daily conundrum as to what to do with our dayshift/temp tenants. I am aware the previous sentence leaves more questions than answers and so I shall elaborate later. You see minister many of my fellow South Africans awake every morning to dutifully report to work, most times we have hot water and at times when Eskom attracts “human error” we don’t, yet even when we do not have warm bath water, we make our way to the stagnant and unmoving traffic in our roads riddled with potholes, small lakes and dam sized openings in the tar. We slalom through these skillfully (it’s something we South Africans have learnt) as we evade taxis; other insane drivers; trucks as well as the ever present blue light brigades who obviously need to push us off the road so they may make their daily morning meeting at the pigs feet buffet.  

We do not complain about these ‘hick-ups’ to be quite honest the daily regimen of extreme driving and near death experiences almost serves as a tough and accelerated workout as it gets the heart rate pumping faster than Khulubuse can swallow a whole chicken. Alas; I will not bore you with the details of our trivial lives, I am well aware you have not experienced any of this since the last time you lived outside of public office, so I shall now get to my earlier point in regards to the dayshift/temp tenants. You see whilst we are away at work, the dayshift enters our homes without invite nor making an appointment as to their arrival, and in the last 2 years these members of the dayshift who obviously come into my residence to keep my home company whilst I am at work have entered my home on at the least I can guess 9 separate occasions dear minister. And these are the ones I know of. In the times I know of their earlier presence they have:

- Entered via my bedroom window with muddy shoes and walked all over my wife’s white linen (whom I must mention was less than pleased-she spent the rest of the week in a mood which affected my sex life)

- Have appropriated mine and my families clothing, including my wifes previously worn underwear; my childrens shoes and nappies and even my boxer shorts (honestly; which man wants to risk wearing my underwear, I consider bathing an occasional affair undertaken every few weeks or so)

- They regularly cooked breakfast (yes I would find the earlier used pan with bacon and eggs remaining) and later they would cook lunch (the chicken curry and rice left over would determine these) and thereafter they would depart without having neither washed their dishes nor left washing powder for the services of cleaning up after them.

- Take food parcels (hopefully for charitable donations) from my fridge and cupboards and leave us with some fruits and veggies. And Minister; just like you, I am a meat man dear minister, I cannot go to bed on 2 bananas and some peas (I know you can understand this one)

- And then at some point they decided they loved the rabbits I had procured for my kids thus these were nowhere to be found when us (the night shift) returned home to find them missing (I hope they kept the rabbits fed rather than used them as the meal)

- Most recently they broke my driver side front window only to find R3 in the ash tray, the R700 I had to pay to replace said window seemed a little excessive for the amount the dayshift acquired in the ash tray would you think so minister?

- Last week the 2 beautiful jack russel puppies I purchased for my kids only the day before were relieved from my presence by the said’ day shift.

Obviously I could go on eternally mentioning the gripes I have with the day shift, but it would become tedious and repetitive if I mentioned how many cameras have been stolen on how many occasions and how many times I have had to do groceries twice in a month in order to support the day staff who have no intention of meeting me at the least half way when it comes to our mutual expenses and use of the home. Thus I will only ask that you read my letter and perhaps you could find it within your soul to mention the problems we South Africans have with our associated temp tenants and the fact that they need to be taught the value of contributing to your own livelihood. I trust you can get around to the SAPS and perhaps have them use their powers of coercion to have the day shift bring their own pots and pans, buy their own clothing and at the least clean up after themselves, nobody wants to wash pans and pots after a long day at the office.