Suburbs plagued by slumlords and house hijackers

It might start with shade cloth being used to cover gates and visibility; multiple satellites erected on the roof; badly painted numbers on the gate or boundary wall; and many people constantly entering and exiting one property. Then more drastic problems emerge such as blocked sanitation and increasing wear and tear on a property left to fall into near total collapse.

“Slumlord” rentals and the hijacking of houses are plaguing north-eastern suburbs, and residents’ associations and concerned neighbours believe the situation is getting worse. Moreover, some of those behind the illegal slumlord rentals are people living within the community itself, and have thus far been unwilling to rectify the situation.

“The biggest revelation has been that some of the landlords – not all – are people we know, people in our community. They may live just a suburb away,” says Nadia O’Brien, the chairperson of the development planning committee of the Sydenham and Sandringham Residents Association.

“In other instances, the owners have moved to other provinces or even overseas and have appointed a ‘manager’ to collect rent on their behalf. In one instance, the owners simply abandoned their home. This house was, in fact, hijacked.”

A concerned Sydenham resident, Alex, whose name has been changed for anonymity, says that attempts to engage with some of the landlords that still live nearby have proved fruitless. Some are even “supposedly well-respected individuals in the Jewish community”.

“We, as neighbours, want to engage with the landlord, to say, ‘Listen we have no issue with individuals living in your house – you are entitled to do this. Let us meet the tenants, let’s make sure that your house is compliant and doesn’t pose any safety or health risks to anyone.’

“But when I’ve tried to approach one or two of these landlords to have a discussion about how to ensure compliance, the landlords aren’t interested in talking. One told me, ‘If you’re not happy with it, go and sell your house and live somewhere else.’

“Why should I? It’s really frustrating. I mean, what do you do? Do you actually start naming and shaming? Do we need to fight this in the press and public space? Do we need to report them to treasury for not complying with tax?

“Maybe if XYZ gets named as a slumlord they won’t be so comfortable anymore walking into the synagogue every Friday, shaking everyone’s hand,” he says.

O’Brien says that a slumlord can be understood as “a landlord that rents out a property to more people than the property is designed to accommodate. The property’s infrastructure cannot support the number of people living in it, and over time, it deteriorates under the strain of too many tenants.”

While there might be an assumption that slumlords are trying to eke out a living from a property that they no longer need, in fact, the opposite is increasingly true. The practice has become a lucrative business, with many taking advantage of a depressed property market to snap up houses on auction and flip them into overcrowded, shared spaces for multiple inhabitants.

“Generally, these landlords have a portfolio of properties spread across many suburbs.”

The practice isn’t just unethical; it’s illegal. “Slumlords generally don’t have leases with the tenants. In some cases, they aren’t paying for municipal services like electricity and water. This results in the tenants being cut off from essential services. There are cases where their tenants have to truck in water or connect illegally to electricity and water. In a couple of cases, tenants use the yard for ablutions.” Alex concurs about health and safety concerns, noting an example where there is an open, algae covered swimming pool in a house where toddlers were living – an “accident waiting to happen”.

“The tenants generally don’t pose a threat. They are people who need decent, affordable accommodation. Slumlords take advantage of these vulnerable people,” says O’Brien.

In addition, rundown properties are dangerous for inhabitants, and they “affect the character of the neighbourhood”. This is a heartsore reality for neighbours. “For most residents, our property is our most significant investment; it represents our life savings. We’ve invested in our homes for our future, and these landlords threaten that. What happened in Orange Grove is no secret, and it’ll happen here unless we make it as difficult as possible for the slumlords to operate,” says O’Brien.

Roger Chadwick, the chairperson of the Orange Grove Residents Association, has been at the helm of a tireless battle to fight the burgeoning situation in his suburb. He estimates that half of the approximately 50 properties in the vicinity that are victim to illegal occupiers, are, in fact, owned by the Johannesburg Property Company (JPC).

The status quo in some of the most seriously anarchic areas has become extreme. “We have even had hijackers hijacking hijackers,” Chadwick says. In a handful of cases, the situation has deteriorated into physical violence and pets being killed.

It’s a complex problem dating back a number of years, when the JPC originally purchased a number of properties and sold 50-year leases to developers. For various reasons, these properties were then illegally occupied, including after corrupt officials from the JPC itself set up illegal leases with private individuals. An investigation into the matter initiated in 2018 by the city had disappointing results, with only one official dismissed.

The director for property hijacking investigations, Victoria Rammala, told the SA Jewish Report that the city’s Group Forensics and Investigation Services is “aware that the scourge of property hijacking is city wide, including the areas under question”. She said the city was “making positive strides to fight this new phenomenon of property hijacking”.

Chadwick, however, believes the “city doesn’t have the will or expertise” to resolve the situation, nor does it have the money for the legal processes that would be needed. Moreover, while legal action is one way in which neighbourhoods might be able to resolve the situation, it’s financially beyond most residents’ means.

Like O’Brien and Alex, Chadwick says many of the inhabitants of slumlord rentals are simply people in need, who would be willing to enter legal agreements if given the option. As such, one solution is for the city to provide the people with legal, inclusive accommodation. Ultimately, partitioned private residences are functioning as hostels, and this, proposes Chadwick, is what the city should formally erect.

When it comes to privately-owned properties with these problems, there is recourse through the residents’ association which can assist by instituting various checks and laying complaints with the city. “If people stand by on the sidelines watching it happen, it’s only going to get worse. There’s no short-term fix, but the community has to galvanise around this,” says Alex.

“We need a concerted effort from the community when it comes to reporting building projects and overcrowded properties,” says O’Brien. “We need to make it uncomfortable for the slumlords. We need to make them stop. We can make sure that they operate within the law and abide by the bylaws.”