fires, rats, diarrhoea, cholera…the problem is always the poor – they knock over candles, fail to wash their hands, don’t clean up after themselves properly….not the atrocious conditions that people are forced to live in due to government contempt….not the lack of clean water, the lack of electricity, the lack of adequate (or any) refuse removal…

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20080723055944536C565156&set_id=1&click_id=3045&sf=

Rats plague settlement

July 23 2008 at 08:34AM

By Mercury reporter

Residents of the Kennedy Road informal settlement in Clare Estate, Durban, are battling a rat infestation.

The rats bit a two-month-old baby, Wandile Cikwayo, last Thursday.

The residents said the rats were also destroying their clothing and food.

Phumza Grangxa said the rats had become a nightmare for the residents.

“These rats are so huge that cats just turn away instead of attacking,” she said.

Grangxa said waste removal trucks could not get into the settlement.

“The municipality should hire us to clean up the place instead of bringing people from outside,” she said.

The eThekwini Municipality’s director of communicable diseases, Ayo Olowolagba, said rats carried diseases and should be exterminated.

However, the community should also manage waste to curb the breeding of the rodents. – Mercury Reporter

o This article was originally published on page 4 of The Mercury on July 23, 2008