Life stinks for these families

A nauseating stench spews out of the dilapidated house on Charl Cilliers Street, in Daspoort suburb, about 11km north of Pretoria.

Dog faeces, dead rats and trash lie everywhere in the yard. A heap of rubbish stands in the backyard, where at least six creaky wooden shacks stand.

This is home to pensioner Nicolaas Krugel, for which he and about eight others pay between R700 and R1000 a month.

"No one deserves to live like this. Look around you: it is a sea of filth. There's no electricity," says Krugel, a retired motor mechanic.

The divorced father of three said he moved into the "rubbish dump" in November. His R1200 state pension goes to his R700 rent, leaving little for food.

"I am starving. It is hard," he said, struggling to get up from his makeshift bed in the tiny shack he shares with three others.

His 58-year-old shackmate, Arther Coetzee, ekes out a living as a car guard at Pretoria Garden Church. Coetzee became homeless after his mother died.

Life is an uphill struggle for these backyard squatters but car guard Henry Venter says they have nowhere to go.

On average, the 37-year-old makes R60 a day and has to pay R50 for transport to and from a Centurion mall.

Venter's unemployed wife, Lynette, 49, says they get food from a local grocery store once a week.

The couple pay R1000 rent a month. Venter said: "We are not proud to be living here but it is better than the streets."

The couple are on the waiting list for an RDP house in Danville, Pretoria West.

Tenants say they share a "dirty" toilet in the house and at night they use buckets.

Isabel Potgieter, the owner of the property, said food, beverages and cigarettes were included in the rent but tenants dispute this.

She threatened to sue The Times if the story were published and said she would dump the "people at your offices . if you damage my name in the newspaper. I have a very f*** good lawyer". She later apologised for her comments.

• Magda Stroebel, founder of the Angels At Work welfare organisation, said there were about 5000 destitute people squatting in backyards in the suburb.

"These are poor people who have lost everything," she said.

About 26 families live in her back yard - in wooden shacks and a camping tent. She said "they pay a small amount".