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A family in Greenpoint is living in fear after a hole has developed in their house three months ago.
The elderly couple who owns the house, Joyce and Daniels Alexander, lives in the house with their grandchildren, aged nine and 15.
According to Joyce, she was mopping the floor when her foot sank into the hole.
“Upon discovering the hole I was very shocked and covered the floor with a carpet to minimise possible injuries. We then called the councillor to investigate the situation for us,” she says.
The couple is now worried as the younger child’s foot also slipped into the hole by accident and they had to help her out.
“Now we are even afraid of going into the bedroom out of fear the hole might swallow us, like on TV, or something will crawl out,” Daniels says.
“We have tried to peep into the hole using torches to see where the hole leads to, but it is too dark inside.”
The Alexanders are still waiting for the Sol Plaatje Municipality to inform them on the way forward.
They say engineers who arrived at their house three months ago, suspected that the hole might be linked to De Beers’ mining activities that happened years ago.
The Alexanders inherited the house, built many years ago, from Daniels’ parents.
The couple has been fixing up the house over the years, and had tiled the floors of all the rooms, except those of the room where the hole appeared.
“It has been three months now since the councillor and the engineers were here, but we have not had any feedback from them,” they say.
Cllr Norman Maditse of Ward 22 confirmed that engineers went to inspect the house, but says they have not received any feedback yet.
Spokesperson for the Sol Plaatje Municipality, Sello Matsie, doubts the existence of any sinkholes in Kimberley and did not carry any knowledge about the complaint.
By the time of going to press, Matsie said they were still busy to determine who went to the house to do inspections.
