Worried that her dream of gifting her home to her autistic eight-year-old grandson is crumbling, a Princes Town pensioner is pleading with the authorities to help her.
Suffering from heart, renal and other health complications and depending solely on a pension to survive, 75-year-old Sandaye Changoor who is also partially blind needs help to save her home which began sinking and cracking five years ago.
More than 50 years ago, she and her husband, (now deceased), built their home at Matilda Road where they raised their two daughters who now live on their own.
However, she recalled, “Since (2)017 water started coming in under the house so I wondered where the water was coming from because the place is fully guttered. People tell me that I must seal back the downstairs on the wall. I did everything but the water still coming in until it (pipeline) erupt in front the house.”
Changoor said she reported the leak to the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) in Princes Town and they eventually did repairs.
However, she said a month later the pipeline ruptured again and WASA returned. But, she said to date water is still seeping into her property but she admitted that the area also has drainage issues.
“Each time the water erupt they come and throw some black stuff and they gone and nothing is being done,” she said. She went to WASA several times, the Ombudsman and Works Department but the problem has not been resolved.
Unable to afford an attorney to represent her, she lamented, “I don’t want the place to go just like that because his (grandson) mother is unemployed looking after him and his dad is a gardener so I want somebody to help me fix this place so it will ensure me that my lil grandson will have something to support him.”
Complaining that her home is sinking, Changoor said there were cracks on the walls and ground inside and outside of her house.
She claimed her neighbours’ properties are also being affected. While she has been doing repairs, she said, “The damage is so much, people who came tell me that I need to get a wall build in the back. I don’t know exactly what to do. I am fearful because I don’t want to lose where I live and I don’t want to go in a home because there are too many things you hearing about homes and I want to keep the home for my little grandson.”
Lamenting that she has sleepless nights, she said sometimes she would hear noises and would be scared that the house was crumbling.
“I have never worked with the Government. I have asked them for nothing but I am begging them to help me now. I sew, I pull PH, I work taxi, I do crochet. I do everything you could think about. I was a community worker. Right now I can’t do anything and I want somebody with a good heart to do the right thing for this citizen,” she said.
Guardian Media contacted WASA and was told that her complaint will be looked into and the authority will respond accordingly.
