The story.

That evening after work, I fed the animals, and made supper for Robin and myself, then we took a walk up to our landlords home, They were not very polite, and the first thing he said to us was that he wanted us out by the end of August.
I tried to speak to him but he just carried on being rude and abusive, so I told him that I wanted the eviction notice in writing, and that I would take it to a Lawyer to see if it was legal.
Well if you can listen to the voice mail on the bottom of the page you will hear what transpired.
After an hour of trying to talk nicely to the man, and him not knowing that we were taping every thing that was said, we said good night and walked back home in the dark.
The following morning was one I never want to experience again, I got to work and told my boss about the problem, and as he said “I cant involve my self in your problems or take your side, I have know your land lord for nearly 30 years and cannot assist you”
I understood what he was saying, but it hurt as well, after all I have worked for him for 6 years, and had been a good friend to him when he needed some one to talk to.
That evening I went home to the farm, knowing that I must get things started, either to find another home to live in or I would have to rehome most of my animals. This of course broke my heart, I placed an advert in a local internet advertising, and with in 2 days had homes for my parrots, my ducks, my geese and my pigs, no one wanted the cats, and I was praying that I would not have to put my dogs down.
I phoned my Sister in Cape Town, and we had a long discussion about what I was going to do.
She then phoned my X husband, and he in turn phoned our Landlord, I don’t know what was said, but my X said that the Land lord had told him that I was rude and swearing at them, This was not so, as you will hear on the voice recordings.
Yes I was very upset and who would not be, to have to part with your beloved animals because of a stupid incident.
A couple of days later, I saw our neighbors talking down at the bottom of the drive and looking very upset, I wondered what was going on, and the next day through the grape vine I heard that he had given them notice as well and said to them that he was going to sell the farm and that is why he wanted all his tenants off the land.
Now the full story was starting to come out, His Land Rates had doubled, and the rent that he was getting from letting us and the other tenants was not enough to cover the cost of running his farm, and that he was going to sell our cottage and the big house, and continue to live in his home, and smaller area of the farm.
By then I had searched for a place to stay, my sister had come up from Cape Town and together we had spent a very miserable day looking at apartments in the Pinetown area, non of which would be good enough, And considering the distance I would have to travel to work every day and home again, and in winter, the days were short and dark before I would get home, she there and then decided that my son and I and four of my dogs would travel to Cape Town and live with her until either I or Robin had a job and was earning enough money to have a home of our own again,
I started packing, and throwing out, its really unreal how much you collect in a life time, and what with Robins computer parts and my books there was enough to fill fifty boxes, I phoned a friend of mine and asked her if she would take the cats to the SPCA for me, and if she would like to take my bird aviary my books, and my pool that I had installed into the front yard, Other friends were offered my furniture, and slowly our home became an empty shell, eventually we were left with only our beds to sleep on and my little 2 plate stove to cook on, and my deepfreeze to keep what we needed in, every thing in my home was given away. I have worked all my life for what I had, and now in the matter of a couple of weeks I had nothing. You just don’t know how it feels to suddenly know that you are going to have to depend on someone else for a living for the rest of your life.
Well we fought the eviction notice, but this was just to give me time to sort things out, and give my notice in at work.
On the 8th November 2008 my dogs flew down to Cape Town, to start a new life, the 9th and the10th we cleaned the house up and disconnected the phone and the computers, of course these were going with us. On the 11th November the Furniture removal Van arrived and loaded what we were taking with us, there were still lots I would not part with, even though there would be very little space for my belongings at my sisters. The night of the 11th November we slept at a friend’s home as now our belongings were on the way to Cape Town, he made us very welcome and they were truly wonderful friends to us for the years we had known them, Thank you Dennis and Anita, for your understanding and your kindness. On the day of the 12th November we went to a seaside boarding house for the evening, and how relaxing and peaceful it was, I had not seen the ocean in years and it was just so good to sit and watch the waves rolling in and out.
The following morning we were taken by a mutual friend to the Bus stop where we were to catch the City liner bus to Cape Town.

Stone haven castle

This is the back entrance to the cottage that we were living in, there was no front entrance, there was a front door, which did not have a lock on the door and was kept closed with 2 screws.

The back entrance was below the level of the ground and when it rained water poured into the kitchen. when we moved into the house 5 years ago there were no shelves, or cupboards in the kitchen, or the bedrooms. we had to supply our own, the kitchen was very tiny, with hardly any space to move around, and no place to put a stove, I was able to fit my fridge into it, and my deep freeze and the wall units I had were used to store our essential in the kitchen, my Bar had to be used to store our groceries.

In the Bedrooms, I had to erect long poles across the walls so that we could hang up our clothes.

The floor of the whole house was raw concrete painted yellow, the same colour as the walls throughout the house. But it was some where to keep us safe and dry from the bitterly cold winters and boiling hot summers. In the yard there were 5 Avacoda pear trees, and all gave a good amount of fruit throuout the years that we were there.

We had water problems, as living in Shongweni the main water pipes came from Hammarsdale, and were old and decayed, often bursting underground and not being noticed untill suddenly a huge fountain of water found its way to the surface, when it would take the municipality water department a few day to come out and fix it.

We also had electrical problems in the house, and if we switched the kettel on, then we would have to switch everything else off, many a computer part was blown because of this shortage problem. But the land lord was not interested in fixing the problem and would not allow us to call and electrician in and the job had never been passed by the housing department. I think the whole cottage had never had plans and had been built first as a cattle shed, then the servants were allowed to build on to it, eventually it had a bathroom built on {that was the best room in the house} The ground was very uneven, and full of devil thorns, a nightmare if you walked out on to it in bare feet. Many a time I had to sort out abscesses on my dogs paws, because of these thorns. And the ticks, so many horrible little creatures, that had to be destroyed daily from my animals. Then there were the snakes, Large Black Mambes these killed 5 of my dogs, and one of my ducks, Zena one of my very brave chows killed 4 large spitting cobras, before her untimly death. We grew our own vegetables, in the garden and had Ducks and geese for their eggs. So we were pretty self contained in what we did.

I worked 2km from work and that is why I walked there every day, I enjoyed my job and my boss David and I got on very well. We worked from his home, which is called Stonehaven castle.

The photo above our cottage is a picture of Stone haven Castle in Shongweni Natal

Well I think thats enough for the day will carry on with this blog and all its heartache another day.

Day one.

It was a tuesday mornin when I received a phone call from my son, who was in a very distraught frame of mind, I was at work at the time this started.
But going back a bit in time to the reason why my son was not at home when all this came about, he had walked with me to work, as at the time I had been recently attacked by three Black men, carrying a grass slasher in one of their hands, I had been choked and had my hand bag ripped off my shoulder, then left lying in the road as they ran off into the bush, after this incident Robin would walk me to work and again fetch me in the afternoon, as I was terrified that the little bastards would come back and try to either rape me or kill me.
That morning he got home to to find his cell phone ringing, and on answering it, found it was our Neighbour Debbie, ranting and raving like a lunatic about our dog Luke having got out of our yard and attacking one of her chickens. Saying that Luke had killed the chicken and run off with one of the babies. Of course Robin was very upset and phoned me to tell me the story at work.
I phone Debbie to apoligise and offered to pay for the chicken, She then told me that the bird was not dead, just stunned, but that she was going to talk to the landlord, to tell him to get us out of the cottage. I then phoned the landlord, who refused to speak to me over the phone, and said that we should go up to his home when I got home from work. If you listen to the recordings you will hear what transpired.
This was the start of our living hell....

The first recording was between my neighbour and my son, this recording is between my land lord and ourselves Sorry you have to download these as I dont know how to place them other then on 4 shared.
http://www.4shared.com/file/98657331/a0585ee1/BI_2.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/98658060/f00d343d/Voice-0001.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/98658172/6da0e67/Voice-0004.html

The last days of our lives in Shongweni Natal South Africa

I am going to first of all try to upload the voice mail conversations that took place between my landlord my son and my self, as well as the voice mail that started the whole ugly process, that came via the telephone from a neighbour.
Please excuse the sound volume as it may not be audiable.

http://www.4shared.com/file/98656243/b869a458/Bill__Inga_Eviction_Notice.html