COLUMN - It’s no secret that people from all over South Africa are flocking to Mossel Bay in droves because it is one of the best places in the country to live.
However, it is also notorious for the laughable salaries many businesses pay their employees.
I am one of a handful of fortunate few that work for a company that remunerates its workforce well enough to afford a reasonable rent and still cover the necessary expenses.
Demand certainly exceeds supply as far as properties to rent are concerned, and unscrupulous homeowners and letting agents alike are exploiting the situation! Just recently, I saw an advertisement for a home for rent in the upper echelons of town; R25000 per month, with two months’ rent upfront as the deposit. R75000 just to secure a home to rent? If I could afford R25K each month for a roof of my head, I’d rather invest it in a place of my own, rather than line someone else’s pockets.
Another advert for a bachelor flat: R6000?! The tragedy of the situation is that the landlord will find tenants willing to pay the ridiculously exorbitant rentals, simply because living quarters are so hard to come by.
When friends of mine’s two-year lease expired for the little home they were renting in Diaz Strand, the landlord told them the contract could be renewed, but the rent increased exponentially (almost 50%!) leaving them no choice, but to vacate the property. Admittedly the landlord did find tenants desperate for the place, but they couldn’t sustain the payments in the long-term.
The bile rises in the back of my throat when I think of families that have no choice but to carry the soul-crushing financial burden of rent, car payments, fuel, utilities, and school fees because they might earn R15000 between them if they’re lucky. Only after those things are paid, there may be some money left to put food on the table. It's high time that many Mossel Bay business owners start financially empowering their employees to be able to meet the high standards of living in this semigration paradise.
I have been living in my flat in Hartenbos, which is owned by a family in Kimberly, for almost nine years at an extremely affordable rental. Like most properties in Mossel Bay, there are no pets allowed, which is understandable given none of the properties are walled in, but they would allow children if I had any.
My landlord’s reasoning is that they would rather have a reliable, trustworthy tenant, and receive a gradual income over an extended period, instead of making a fast buck and sit with a myriad of repairs that may swallow up the profits afterwards, because the tenants couldn’t have been bothered to look after the place properly.
On the subject of “No Children”, the mind boggles, I often wonder if such people hatched like an alien lifeform into immediate adulthood, or how they would have felt if their parents couldn’t provide the most basic of Maslow’s needs because they had children.
What has happened to compassion?
I know that many readers won’t agree with this sentiment, but I personally think Mossel Bay could benefit from a system like the ‘rent control’ one in certain states and/or cities in the USA. Failing that, the next best option would be ‘rent stabilization’, which would dictate how much the maximum rent could be for a certain dwelling in a specific area and by how much (and how often) the landlord can increase the rent. That way all players in the lessor-lessee chain are protected.
That’s just my five cents…
